The Trouble with Weather
by i'm a quitter
Summary: Let's look into Logan's mind through all three X-Men movies... Did he really fall in love with Jean, or were his affections aimed at Ororo? The trouble with weather is that it changes without warning, but Logan has always been an outdoors kind of guy...
1. Cage Fight

My first X-Men attempt, thank you very much. I'm an avid fan of X-Men, and an even bigger fan of Wolverine/Storm, so I hope this doesn't turn out to be a dud. Basically, this is the X-Men that you saw on screen, with this exception; maybe we misinterpreted Logan's feelings about Jean. Maybe it wasn't her that he was really falling in love with. You get the idea. Enjoy!

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**Part One: The Scent of a Storm**

Logan threw one last punch at the drunken fighter and tossed him aside, stalking to his designated corner of the cage to pick up his cigar, which was still burning in the ashtray. He ignored the three short chimes of the bell that signaled the end of the match. He ignored the two men that bustled into the cage to drag out their unconscious friend. The cheers and boos of the crowd were nearly deafening to his sensitive ears, and the announcer was only trying to excite the intoxicated spectators more, but he ignored that too. Over the years, Logan had learned to ignore a lot of things.

"Gentlemen, in all my years, I've never seen anything like it," the announcer shouted excitedly. _Damn straight,_ Logan thought, taking a long, well deserved drag from his cigar.

"Are you going to let _this_ man walk away with _your_ money?!"

Logan resisted the cocky smirk that tugged at his lips. _I dare someone to stop me._

The crowd got louder still, but above the jeers and cheers, Logan heard some fool shout, "I'll fight him!" The cheers of encouragement were overwhelming, but Logan simply rolled his eyes. _Like the ego boost will do you any good, bub._ He downed a double shot of whiskey as the man's lumbering steps signaled his arrival to the cage.

"Ladies and gentlemen, our savior!"

More cheers answered the announcer's declaration. It was loud enough that the man could lower his voice so that only the new fighter – and Logan – could hear. Covering the microphone, the announcer spoke normally, the energy and enthusiasm in his voice gone completely. He spoke as though he was offering a dying man a few last words of wisdom. "Whatever you do, don't hit him in the balls."

"You said anything goes," the fighter protested. _He's practically whining,_ Logan thought as the respect he might have had for the human evaporated.

"Anything goes, but he'll take it personal," the announcer warned.

Logan snorted. Who the hell _wouldn't_ take it personally? And if this man were truly stronger – Logan finally allowed himself a small smirk at the hilarity of the thought - why would he have to give himself that kind of advantage, anyhow? A real man would fight blow for blow, face to face. No cheating, no back stabbing, no hitting below the belt, no unfair advantages.

_Well, for the most part…_

Perhaps Logan _did_ have an unfair advantage, but even without his superhuman speed, hearing, sense of smell and ability to heal – not that he was tooting his own horn – he was sure that he'd hand this guy his ass, no problem.

The announcer stepped out of the cage and with three short rings the fight began. Logan had had his back turned up until this point, and before he even got the chance to turn around, he heard the fighter get closer, undoubtedly to strike him. _Excellent, _he thought without enthusiasm._ Another hero…_

The fighter kicked him in the lower half of his back, and Logan let the blow knock him to the side. The man didn't wait half a second before punching him in the face once, and then twice. The punches didn't hurt, per se, but they weren't light caresses either. Logan was slouched down, almost on his hands and knees when the man kicked him in the abs, and then kicked him in the groin. _Hard. _The smug chuckle he heard was enough evidence to prove that he had done it intentionally.

Logan heard the men around him groan, and was sure that a few of them were clutching themselves in pain, just as he was. Inhuman strength didn't matter when it came to getting hit like that. A man _felt _that kind of blow, whether he was a regular human or the Incredible Hulk (although he briefly wondered if anyone alive had the courage to do such a thing).

His opponent stepped back, chuckling more as he listened to the crowd cheer him on. Logan inhaled deeply, quickly listing the reasons why it might not be a good idea to kill this man tonight. It was hard to think clearly when his vision was tinted pink, but he'd learned acceptable self restraint over the years. Had this exact event had taken place two years ago, Logan would have impaled him by now.

Taking another deep breath, he noticed that the smell of alcohol was absent from the immediate area. Perhaps it made sense that this guy was hitting harder and aiming better; it was the first man tonight that Logan had fought that wasn't severely intoxicated. _All the more reason to kick his ass,_ he thought savagely. If someone was drunk and they weren't fighting fair, Logan could grudgingly accept that – hey, he'd been there plenty of times. But if this jackass was perfectly sober, what reason did he have to fight dirty?

_People these days… no dignity…_

This back and forth in Logan's mind had taken only a few seconds, but he didn't need to think too hard to come to a decision. The man charged at him and Logan got up on one knee, balling his hand into a fist and throwing a punch. Their fists collided and he heard a faint ring echo in his ears above the chaos, as well as the soft cracking of bones in the other man's hand. Had any of the humans possessed hearing as acute as Logan's, they'd probably have found the sound sickening. Logan, at the moment, was rather fond of the sound.

The fighter cried out in surprise and clutched his hand, shock and confusion clear in his eyes. It was certainly broken, and Logan probably would have smirked if he wasn't so pissed. He stood up fully and punched the man across the face, and another faint ring confirmed that the fighter would probably have a concussion. Still, Logan watched the man stagger back with no pity. Jerking his head to the side, he cracked his neck before head butting the man as he tried to stagger forward, knocking him out completely.

Logan flexed his neck again, breathing slowly and resisting the urge to continue his beating. Unlike _some people, _he knew when enough was enough. The guy would certainly be embarrassed when he woke up, and stooping to his level didn't interest Logan one bit. The bell rang three times and the crowd booed him loudly.

"Ladies and gentlemen, tonight's winner – and _still_ king of the cage – the Wolverine!"

Shrugging off the crowd's dismay at his victory, Logan kicked the man in the ribs before returning to his corner and finishing off his cigar. _At least I'm getting paid for putting up with this,_ he thought. _And I get to blow off a little steam too. The perfect therapy session…

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Questions or comments are welcome and appreciated!


	2. Bar Fight

It just occurred to me how painfully short that last chapter was, so I thought I'd be nice and follow up with this right away. Enjoy!

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Logan went out to his truck to stash his winnings for the night. He had a feeling that, if he hung around the bar while the big spenders were still pissing and moaning over their losses, a fight might break out and everyone would turn on him. _Wouldn't be the first time,_ he thought with a small smirk, which faded as quickly as it came. _Or the second time…_

So he turned on the radio and listened to 80's rock, waiting for the bar to clear out a little. Most people came for the Wednesday night cage match at Lion's Den and only stuck around for a beer or two after it was over. He hadn't been sitting in his truck for more than half an hour before it looked like the place was mostly deserted. There would still probably be a few people inside, but he could only hope that they had the common sense to leave him alone.

_Yeah, since when do humans show that they're capable of common sense?_ He snorted, turning off the radio and making his way into the bar. Perhaps that wasn't a fair remark. Plenty of humans were perfectly reasonable. They didn't overreact at the sight of a mutant and they didn't fear them for absurd reasons. Still, the people that did have such hatred made other humans look bad, and it made it harder to trust humans altogether.

Logan walked in slowly and inhaled, identifying everything and everyone by scent and sound. Two men were still over by the cage, sweeping, from the sound of it. The bar owner and his wife were sitting at a table, drinking and counting money. A passed out drunk was snoring on the couch, the bartender was wiping glasses clean, and a woman was sitting at the bar in absolute silence.

"You want something new, honey," he heard the bartender ask. "Or are you sticking with water?" Logan heard something slide across the bar, probably the tip jar being pushed out of her reach. Logan snorted quietly. There couldn't be more than twenty-five dollars in there; hardly anything to be overly protective of. _Then again, he didn't hit the jackpot tonight like I did._

Logan rounded one of the pillars and sat at the bar. "I'll have a beer," he said, popping a cigar in his mouth and digging through his pockets for cash.

He felt the woman's eyes on him, and he glared up at her, waiting for her to look away. She was surprisingly young, hardly a woman at all. She was just a girl, no older than seventeen, if he had to guess, but her scent was sweeter than anyone's he'd ever smelled. It smelled familiar, but he was more than positive that he'd never met her before. Still, it was odd that her scent was so distinct. For the most part, humans all had the same dull smell to him, so what was special about her?

She was still eying him from across the bar. Her expression wasn't fearful, it was curious. _That's a first, _he thought, his glare still firmly in place. She finally took the hint and looked away. Though her reaction to him made him just as curious about her, he decided that he didn't care. _I'm going to have a beer, a smoke, and move on to the next town,_ he thought, peeling a five out of the wad and tossing it on the bar counter.

The bartender had the news on in the background, and Logan focused on listening to it, despite the fact that it was the same old crap that the U.S. had been talking about for months. It was better than wondering about the brat across the bar and what her overly sweet scent reminded him of.

"Ellis island, once the arrival point for hundreds of thousands of American immigrants, is opening its doors again," the newscaster said. "Preparations are nearly completed for the upcoming United Nations World Summit. With nearly every invitation confirmed, the event promises to be the largest single gathering of world leaders in history."

The bartender took Logan's money, set his change on the counter in front of him, and gave Logan his beer. He took another long drag from his cigar before taking a swig of his beer, savoring the taste. He was perfectly content with a fresh cigar and a cold beer any day of the week._  
_

"The leaders of over two hundred nations will discuss issues ranging from the world's economic climate and weapons treaties, to the mutant phenomenon and its impact on our world stage."

Out of the corner of his eye, Logan could see that the girl was still glancing at him, but she visibly stiffened at the word 'mutant' and began paying close attention to the news. Logan idly wondered if she knew that he was a mutant, but decided, once again, that he needn't bother caring. If she were a smart girl, then she'd be right to fear him. Then again, a smart girl of her age wouldn't be out by herself so late at night in the first place.

Trying not to cringe at his unnecessary concern for the girl, Logan turned his attention back to the news. "Many American legislators have contended that debate over mutant issues should be the primary focus of what is, on the surface, a strictly diplomatic affair."

Logan frowned thoughtfully. It seemed that the humans were more concerned about mutants than he'd realized, if they had to call world leaders in to discuss the topic. _We aren't weapons,_ he thought as he flicked some ashes from his cigar into the ashtray. _Not by choice, and not all of us. Is the United States trying to scare the rest of the world with all this bullshit?_

He listened for more, but picked up the scent of the sober man he'd knocked out earlier. The smell was now mixed with cheap vodka and beer, much to his annoyance. _Excellent._

"You owe me some money," Cheap Shot said, his voice surprisingly clear considering the amount of alcohol on his breath. A nervous man stood behind him. He smelled a little drunk too, but not nearly as intoxicated as the first.

"Come on, Stu," his friend said, trying in vain to sound calm. "Let's not do this." Logan heard the man shivering, and could guess that it was from more than the cold. A quiet sniff confirmed his suspicion; he reeked of fear.

Stu, as his friend had called him, shrugged the terrified man off. "No man takes a beating like that without a mark to show for it," he snapped at Logan.

Logan rolled his eyes and tried to block out the loser, focusing on his cigar. _You're one to talk,_ he thought, holding his temper in check so far. _No man gets his ass kicked like that and comes back for more. _Stu probably felt more confident now that it wasn't just the two of them in a closed off arena. Or perhaps Logan's head-butt had knocked Stu's IQ down to two digits.

Whatever the reason, Logan wasn't in the mood to fight anymore. Not for fun, anyways. He wanted to enjoy his beer and get the hell out of this town. _But that's too much to ask for, isn't it?_

"Come on, buddy," his friend begged. "This isn't going to be worth it."

_Listen to your friend…_

Stu shoved his friend back and got close enough to whisper in Logan's ear. "I know what you are."

_You have _no_ fucking idea. _His temper was rapidly rising, his clear vision already beginning to turn pink. "You lost your money," Logan growled back. "Keep this up and you'll lose something else."

He heard the girl's pulse quicken, but paid it no more attention than that. If she didn't want to see a fight, then a bar was the last place she should've been. It was the last place she should be regardless, but he wasn't her father, and thus he shouldn't have to worry about her being exposed to a few dark realities of the world.

"Come on, buddy," his friend said, trying to pull him back. Wisely, Stu took a few steps back, and he felt the tension in the air deteriorate. But only for a second; Logan heard the distinct _chink_ that a blade made when unsheathed. Every pulse in the bar spiked. _Goddammit…_

"Look out!" the girl shrieked.

Logan stood and knocked the knife away with ease. He grabbed Stu by his shirt and shoved him against the pillar, pushing his two outer claws out around Stu's throat. His middle claw slid out of his knuckles slowly, touching his Adam's apple with a deadly care. Though Stu tried to appear calm and in control, Logan felt his unsteady pulse and his breath coming up short. And the fear in the air from him alone nearly made Logan choke.

He was seriously considering breaking Stu in half, but the smell of gunpowder halted him. A second later, he heard the bartender cock what sounded like a rifle and felt it press lightly against his ear. He turned his head only a little, eying the barrel distastefully. _GodDAMMIT!_

"Get out of my bar, freak," the bartender whispered, eyes wide and fearful.

Logan slowly turned back to Stu, trying to count to ten. He _hated_ guns. Guns were for killing animals, and he was _not_ an animal. A mutant? Yes. A monster? Maybe. His dog tag may have 'Wolverine' stamped on it, but he was _not_ an animal.

Faster than any of their eyes could possibly follow, Logan pushed his claws out of his other hand and reached behind him, slicing the rifle in half and spilling gun powder everywhere. He poised his claws upwards at the other man's throat, and a low growl escaped him as he looked back and forth between the bartender and Stu. The sound of their combined breathing and irregular heartbeats was nearly as thunderous. The noise was so loud that it blended together, but one pulse in particular was pumping faster than all the rest, and he didn't have to look in her direction to know who it was. Nevertheless, he turned to face the girl. Her eyes were impossibly wide and she was barely breathing. Her fear smelled nearly as sweet as she did, but it was unmistakably fear. She couldn't have looked more frightened if his claws had been pointed at her own throat.

Internally grumbling at having frightened the girl, he sheathed his claws slowly, and felt the men around him relax as he lowered his arms. The girl's heartbeat, however, refused to slow down, despite her attempt to look unafraid.

Logan – merciful man that he was – was letting them live by choice, and looking around at the angry faces, it was clear that they knew it too. He was also able to gauge that he was no longer welcome. He stalked out of the bar before things got too ugly in front of the young girl, and wondered why he cared at all.

He got into his truck and started the engine. It roared to life without protest and Logan sat for a second, trying to calm his heartbeat and temper after the adrenaline rush. He glanced at his knuckles and rubbed at them absently.

_Freak._

No matter the situation, whenever it was discovered that he was a mutant, the word that every human used for him was 'freak.' He tried not to let it bother him. After all, those idiot humans didn't know him. No one knew him, to be perfectly honest. But still, every once in a while, he allowed himself to hate the humans for not understanding that he wasn't what he was by choice.

_Not that I can remember._


	3. Stow Away

Canadian roads were long, scenic, completely devoid of life… _and impossibly boring when you've seen it all before._

Logan had been letting his mind wander to anything and everything for the past forty-five minutes, but he was still bored out of his mind. The dominate subject had been the meeting on Ellis Island, much to his dismay. He just couldn't rationalize the need for such a gathering to discuss mutants. Especially when none of the world leaders were mutants. _That we know of…_

Still, he and the rest of the world knew damn well that the main discussion was indeed the 'mutant phenomenon,' as they had labeled it. It was entirely possible that they did intend to discuss all those other things, but Logan doubted that it would hold anyone's attention for much more than fifteen minutes. Openly admitting to that was certainly progress, but they were still beating around the bush, in his opinion.

They wanted mutants to register their powers to the government or some nonsense like that, if he understood correctly. The whole thing was absolutely ridiculous! Some mutants were more dangerous than others – he absolutely agreed with that. But some humans were far more dangerous and creative than mutants. It was a complicated argument to make, but it seemed to Logan that all of this mutant registration business boiled down to pure and simple fear. And scared people had a habit of becoming dangerous people.

He felt the trailer behind him shift and looked behind him. It was the third time he'd felt it do that since he'd left the bar, and the wind wasn't nearly strong enough for that kind of movement. In fact, the air outside was rather still…

He slowed the truck to a stop in the middle of the road and got out. He had a hunch as to what it might be, but he'd never know for sure unless he got out and looked for himself. Arriving at the trailer, he inhaled. Clean air, but that didn't necessarily mean that she wasn't there. If she'd covered herself with the tarp, her scent would have disappeared miles ago. It would be under the cover.

He idly wondered if he was just being paranoid, but then he heard another shift and a rising pulse. He leaned over the trailer and poked, causing another shift. Rolling his eyes, he threw the cover off of the girl and her insanely sweet scent hit him. He'd had a hard time identifying it in the bar, but now that her scent wasn't mingled with smoke and alcohol, he noted that her smell was comparable to peppermint. _As if it matters._

She lay perfectly still for a moment, possibly wondering if he saw her. Realizing that she was caught, though, she tried to sit up. She looked groggy, like she had been sleeping, or at least trying to. Considering the frigid air, the uncomfortable position she'd been in, and the hard surface of the trailer, she would have to be _very _tired to fall asleep. _Not my problem._

"What the hell are you doing?" Logan demanded.

"I'm sorry," she muttered in a heavy southern accent, squeezing her eyes shut against the harsh light. "I needed a ride… thought you might help me…"

_Nice try, _he thought skeptically. "Get out."

She stared up at him, and he reached down and grabbed her bag, throwing it out for emphasis. "Where am I supposed to go?" she asked tiredly

"I don't know." _Home, maybe? Where you belong?_

"You don't know, or you don't care?"

"Pick one," he snapped. He didn't know her destination. And, as she wasn't his responsibility, he wasn't obligated to care. He had already cared about her more than was necessary in the bar. He was done for the day.

She jumped out, and Logan made his way back to the cab of his truck as she stared at him. He felt her heartbeat quicken. "I saved your life," she tried.

"No you didn't." He slammed the door of the truck and put it in drive.

He glanced in the side mirror as her figure grew smaller, but saw that she hadn't moved an inch. "At least get off the road," he muttered, trying to stare ahead and pay no attention to her.

He made it three seconds before he had to look back again. Where _could_ she go? The last town was at least fifty miles behind them, and he had no clue how far it was to the next town. And he didn't need a thermometer to tell him that her frail hide would probably freeze before she made it a mile in either direction. Hell, he'd been a little cold himself, and he had pretty thick skin.

He squeezed his eyes shut in annoyance before slowing down the truck and throwing it into park. "Thirty seconds, kid," he muttered under his breath. "I can't wait forever." Not five seconds later, he heard the faint slap of her shoes against the snow, as though she had heard his threat. _'Atta girl._

She climbed in without a word and Logan began driving without a word. He hoped they would continue like this, but knew that he was asking for too much. He'd encountered plenty of women in the fifteen years he could remember of his life, and had come to the conclusion that women _needed_ to talk and socialize. He knew he shouldn't stereotype, but he had yet to meet a woman who didn't feel it was her personal duty to bombard him with questions.

Logan was the type to avoid talking to anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. He simply wasn't a social person. He didn't have any friends, so he had no reason to talk to anyone. And he certainly didn't want to talk to this girl or make friends with her.

"You don't have anything to eat, do you?"

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, he popped the cigar he'd been smoking into his mouth and reached into the glove compartment for the last of his beef jerky. He tossed it into her lap without looking at her. It was only a matter of time before she expected some kind of response from him, but he'd do his part to prolong the silence as long as he could.

She tore off her gloves as quickly as possible and ate more than half the packet in two large bites, hardly slowing down to chew. Logan glanced at her with a raised brow. Grown men didn't eat like that. How long had she gone without a meal? He briefly remembered her half empty cup of water at the bar and almost wished he had something else for her to eat.

She pulled her hood down and Logan had a clear view of her face for the first time, though he chose to discreetly glance at her out of the corner of his eye. She didn't look terribly thin, nor did she look overly exhausted or famished. His pity ebbed away. She'd survive until they reached the next town.

"I'm Rogue."

Logan took a drag of his cigar and said nothing. Perhaps if he simply didn't participate, she'd give up and stay silent. He hoped. It certainly worked on drunken women at bars that were trying to hit on him. But this girl was neither drunk nor hitting on him, and for this reason, Logan got the feeling that the silent treatment _really _wouldn't work on her. She seemed oddly unafraid of him.

She leaned forward, and Logan kept his eyes on the road, assuming that she was trying to get a better look at his face. "Were you in the Army?" she asked, nodding to his dog tag. "Doesn't that mean you were in the Army?"

He glanced down and tucked the dog tag inside of his shirt. Even if he _did_ know her well enough to talk to her, he wouldn't know what to say to that. Logan had no idea if he had been in the Army. He could have been. Or maybe in the Navy or the Air Force or maybe he had been a Marine. He'd always had it with him. He didn't know what it meant, but he _knew _that it was his. It was a small connection to the past he couldn't remember, and he'd keep it as long as he needed to.

The girl – Rogue – obviously didn't know any of that. She'd asked a simple enough question, but if he was lucky, she'd take the hint and drop the subject. Maybe even stop talking altogether, he hoped for the third time. _But I don't have that kind of luck, do I?_

Rogue looked away, but was unable to stay still for long. She suddenly looked behind her, no doubt eying the messy space where he had lived for the better part of five years. "Wow."

"What?" he finally snapped, annoyed that she'd gotten him to talk.

She straightened up and looked him square in the eye, voice steady and confident as though she was stating a fact. "Suddenly my life doesn't look that bad."

His grip on the wheel tightened involuntarily. Brat! She had stolen a ride on his trailer, but instead of leaving her on the road – like he should have, it seemed – he had given her a lift, in the cab, no less. She was hungry, so he let her eat what he had to offer. She wanted to chatter, so he let her speak instead of telling her to shut the hell up. And her thanks was criticizing his living space and telling him that _his_ life was worse than _hers_?

_Fuck that…_

"Look, if you'd prefer the road – " he said, slowing down as he spoke.

"No, no! It looks great," she said hurriedly. "Looks cozy."

Logan glared at her and she quickly looked away, her cheeks turning pink and her heart beating a little faster. He concentrated on the road and tried, for what felt like the hundredth time that day, to pay no attention to her. She was just a girl, and a runaway at that. She probably wasn't used to watching her mouth. Or perhaps she was like him and just didn't care.

She shoved one last piece of jerky in her mouth and began rubbing her hands together. The faint sound of her skin rubbing together and her slight shivering became unbearably loud in the quiet cabin. More than _anything_, he wanted to ignore the sound. _Let her stay cold. She's an ungrateful, ride stealing, criticizing…_

The sound got to him after only a few seconds. He tried not to growl as he flicked on the heat switch and reached for her hands. "Put your hands on the heater."

She flinched away from him, and her pulse spiked as though she'd been shocked. He frowned down at her. If she was so afraid of him, then why the hell had she hitched a ride with him so willingly? "I'm not going to hurt you, kid," he insisted, placing his hands back on the wheel all the same.

"It's nothing personal," she said darkly. "It's just that... When people touch my skin, something… happens." As quickly as she had torn the gloves off, she fumbled to put them back on.

She offered no further explanation, but she had peaked Logan's curiosity. "What happens?"

"I don't know. They just get hurt." She looked at him, her eyes flickering to his knuckles.

So did that mean that she was a mutant too? It would certainly explain why she had chosen _his_ trailer. Also why she seemed so curious about him and why she wasn't afraid of him.

"Fair enough." It didn't really matter to him. As soon as he hit the next town, he'd kick her out and never have to see her again. He could forget that he'd ever smelled her odd, peppermint scent, he could forget that he'd ever seen her wide eyed fear of him, and he could forget that he'd given the ungrateful teenager a ride.

"When they come out," she said, now outright staring at his hands, "does it hurt?"

_Damn her curiosity! _His gaze traveled down to his hands for a fraction of a second before he returned his eyes to the road, not wanting to be reminded of the animal most people thought that he was.

"_Get out of my bar, freak."_

"Every time," he said gruffly, putting an end to that topic.

Perhaps it wouldn't hurt him as much if he did it more often, but he rarely had need of his claws, accept for special situations, like today in the bar. The last time he had pushed them out was three weeks ago, and before that, it had been two months. Though it was easy enough to brush off what people said about his claws, it wasn't as easy to be reminded of it every time he unsheathed them. He tried not to do it unless it was absolutely necessary.

Rogue shifted uncomfortably, looking almost sorry that she had asked. Logan could now be sure that she would keep her mouth shut for the rest of the drive, but he couldn't help feeling disappointed about that.

_Why the _hell _do I _care_?!_

Maybe she wasn't the picture of politeness, but neither was he. And he certainly wasn't helping by being so cold. "So," he began, hoping that this wouldn't come around to bite him in the ass, "what kind of a name is Rogue?"

"I don't know," she said quietly, turning back to him. "What kind of a name is Wolverine?"

He tried not to smirk. That would have been his answer, had she asked first. He realized that while they were complete strangers, they already knew quite a bit about each other. They had dual identities, they were both alone in a world full of humans that feared them, and they were both ill at ease about their mutations. Only a few minutes ago, he'd thought that this girl was the last person he'd ever want for a friend, but now he wondered if he ought to try. She seemed nice enough. _At times,_ he thought roughly. _Then again, I have my moments too. Who the hell doesn't?_

"My name's Logan."

She seemed satisfied. "Marie."

He glanced to the side and offered her a half smile. It was a pretty name. It certainly suited her. He returned his eyes to the road as snow began falling. Maybe having a friend – only one – wouldn't be _so_ bad.


	4. Knock Out

Thanks so much to all my reviewers! The encouragement really keeps me going! Here's another chapter for your reading pleasure!

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Logan and Marie had been sitting in companionable silence for twenty minutes, and there wasn't a town in sight. As rude as she'd initially been, Logan was glad he hadn't left Marie to fend for herself on the road. As lost as she'd looked when he'd thrown her bag out of the trailer, she'd probably be standing in the exact same spot.

He rounded a corner a little too sharply for her taste and she inhaled sharply. "You know, you really should wear your seat belt."

What would a seat belt do if they spun out of control and went over a cliff? It sure as hell wouldn't help, not that he'd need any protection anyhow. And besides, he'd been driving in weather like this for many years without incident.

What interested him was the fact that she'd suggested wearing a seat belt rather than slowing down. Still, he knew what he was doing on icy pavement, and he didn't need her to comment on his driving skills. "Look, kid," he said, turning to her. "I don't need advice on auto safety from – "

Out of nowhere, a tree fell right in the middle of the road. Having no time to stop or even slow down, Logan's truck slammed into the tree at fifty miles per hour. Logan flew out of his seat and through the windshield like a rag doll, falling head first into the snow and skidding to a stop about forty-five feet ahead of the truck.

Still conscious, he laid perfectly still, picking out where he was damaged and concentrating on holding his breath to keep the pain at bay. He was certainly bleeding internally. A deflated lung, his kidneys felt bruised, and _something _was slicing into his intestines. Those were all the injuries he could feel, so God only knew what the hell else was broken.

All of his internal injuries healed first, and he blessed his healing mutation as the sharp stabs of pain turned into dull throbs. No broken bones, as usual, but he realized that his right shoulder and hip had been dislocated. Those were minor injuries, however, and he was able to move without unbearable pain. A quick, rough twist and they both popped back into place.

Marie, however, didn't have his talent for withstanding injuries that serious, as far as he knew. He'd have to get back to the truck to check on her.

He slowly pushed himself up off of the ground, staggering as he tried to balance on his unsteady legs. He felt heat on his forehead, and could only assume that he'd gotten a nasty gash there as well. He was thankful that he didn't really feel whatever it was as he tried walking, concentrating on one foot in front of the other. His truck looked more or less totaled, but that didn't matter. He had won the piece of crap in a poker game five years ago. The condition of the cargo worried him more.

Perhaps the seat belt would have been a good idea. It had certainly kept her from flying out with him. He listened hard and smelled the air for her blood, but only picked up the faint smell of gasoline. She was breathing heavily, but her pulse was strong, and he didn't smell any of her blood. She appeared to be alright.

As he came closer, his footsteps became less wobbly, and he was finally able to focus his energy on healing his head injury. He cracked his neck to both sides and felt the gash close completely. He looked up at Marie and saw her staring at him, a mixture of astonishment and relief on her face.

But still no fear. She was an odd one.

"You all right?" Like a deer in the headlights, she continued staring at him. Logan raised his voice, hoping that she wasn't in shock. "Kid, are you all right?"

"I'm stuck!" she shouted, an edge of panic in her voice. Logan wiped the blood off of his forehead and made is way around the tree trunk to help Marie. Maybe the seat belt had saved her from being thrown out, but it had trapped her in the truck, which would probably start fire in a minute or two if it hadn't already.

Logan caught sight of the tree trunk and stiffened. It was thick, healthy, and showed no signs of rotting, yet it had just fallen to the ground right in front of them. It made no logical sense, until Logan thought he heard a very faint rustling in the cover of the trees.

Marie and his truck forgotten, he was instantly on the alert. He sniffed the air, trying to pick up a scent, any scent. He didn't know what it was, but he was sure that he was being watched, and he knew that it was a predator.

His claws jumped out of his knuckles for the second time that day, and though he still felt the familiar pain, it wasn't as intense. He turned his head a few times, trying to pinpoint the location of this hunter in the whirl of snow around him, which seemed to be getting stronger every second. A moment too late, he heard a growl and was tackled by a mass of solid muscle. He hit the ground hard and before he could scramble to his feet, the creature picked him up and threw him a good twelve feet into the air. Logan's back made contact with a birch tree, snapping it, and probably his spine, in half.

He tumbled down into the snow, and tried to block out the fire that raced up and down his back as he crawled on all fours and tried to get up. The creature – for it was much too hairy and fearsome to be considered a person – was in front of him, holding a heavy, ten foot log like a baseball bat. _Aww, shi-_

Before Logan could even finish the thought, the beast swung it around with ease and hit Logan square in the face, sending him flying back onto the hood of the car. He hardly had the strength to breathe, and his claws retracted without his permission. He lay perfectly still, feeling the blackness of unconsciousness trying to claim him. It was a familiar feeling, but he wasn't entirely sure if he could fight it off this time. He knew he just had to lie still for a while longer and then he'd heal…

But the smell of smoke drifted into his lungs, and through the haze he knew that if he didn't get up, both he and Marie would probably die from the truck exploding. And that was in the unlikely event that the creature decided to leave them there.

A strong gust of wind hit him, driving thought and even the pain out to his mind completely. It carried with it an intoxicatingly exotic scent, like nothing he'd ever inhaled in his life. Logan only breathed it in twice before he was out like a light.


	5. First Encounter

First and foremost, I apologize for taking so long with this chapter, despite the fact that it is so short. On the bright side, I nearly finished the next three chapters! Those should all be up by Friday-ish. Once again, thank you to my readers - who always make me happy! - and enjoy!

* * *

Logan wasn't quite aware of his surroundings, teetering on the edge of awareness and unconsciousness. He wondered if he was dreaming, but soon dismissed the idea. One rarely had dreams where they were aware of the fact that they were dreaming.

He knew that, wherever he was, it probably wasn't anywhere near the road where he had gotten into that scuffle with the man-beast that had attacked him. His memory was hazy, but he tried to recall what had happened to him. He remembered getting hit in the head, trying to wait for his body to recover, and then passing out completely, but not before that scent had drifted into his lungs…

It had been so brief that he couldn't accurately remember it. He'd never smelled anything like it, and wondered what it could have possibly been. In some ways, it had been similar to Marie's scent, though hers wasn't nearly as powerful as this had been.

Marie! She'd still been stuck inside the truck when he'd been fighting. She had to be safe and nearby if he was here, but Logan wasn't quite that trusting of strangers.

He heard a faint clicking that sounded like high heels hitting tile flooring. He dismissed the thoughts of the mystery scent and Marie's possible whereabouts, and tried to concentrate on here and now. He needed to find out where he was before he could even begin to figure out how he might get to Marie.

His eyes weren't open, but whatever room he was in, it was well lit. It was quiet, save for the heels, so he must have been alone until now. And it smelled overly clean, almost sterile.

_Maybe a hospital?_ Another unique scent drifted into the room with his visitor. Gingerbread? Why did every woman - the heels made it more than obvious that it was a female – suddenly smell like a sweet treat of some sort? He didn't even like sweets that much.

He wanted to sit up, open his eyes - something - but he was too exhausted, and still unable to move an inch. Her scent grew stronger as she got closer, until he could feel and smell her standing beside him. He felt her fingers, light as a feather, dust across his forearm all the way down to his knuckles. Possibly she was feeling them for any trace that claws had come out, but they had retracted before he'd passed out. And how could she possibly have known about them unless she'd seen him with them out?

Logan tried to lift his hand away from the woman's touch, but nothing happened. He tried speaking, but his throat burned, aching for water. He was just too exhausted. He couldn't remember every taking a beating that hard. How long had he been out?

He heard odd clinks and clanks around him and tried to ignore them. If he couldn't move, maybe he could try going back to sleep. So far it didn't seem as though this woman was any kind of threat to him.

He suddenly felt a needle pierce into the skin on the inside of his elbow, and he was instantly awake. He felt his regeneration mutation surge through his entire body with alarming speed and his adrenaline made his pulse roar in his ears.

Acting purely on instinct, he knocked the woman's arm away and jumped off of the table, pivoting behind her and locking his arm firmly around her throat. Admittedly, a little too firmly. He waited for a few seconds, and when he was absolutely sure that she wasn't breathing, he released her and rushed out of the room, leaving her sputtering and coughing on the floor.

He ran out the doors and into a hall that smelled just as sterile as the room. It was bright, silver, and he was sure that he'd easily get lost if he just wandered around and chose random halls to go down. _Some hospital…_

He stopped at an intersection and looked around him, ripping small round objects off of his bare chest and pulling the needle out of his vein as he looked around. His best bet would be to try following the woman's scent backwards, though he wasn't sure how far that would get him. Still, if he took too long to decide, her scent would disappear completely.

Catching it, he began walking down the hall, looking around him as he went. The halls and doors all looked the same, and he had to wonder if he was walking in circles. Was he in an asylum?

"_Where's he going?_" someone whispered.

Logan whirled around, looking for the source of the noise and trying to pick up a new scent. Nothing. But he was sure he'd heard something. _That thing must've hit me pretty hard…_

He looked around again and saw semi-circle of glass panels, each showcasing some kind of suit, all with an odd 'X' symbol. Now that he thought of it, all of the circular doors had that symbol on it too. It was probably an insignia of some kind, but Logan didn't care to ponder its meaning.

The suits specifically for men and women were easily identifiable, but none of them held his interest. What _did_ catch his attention, however, was a half opened closet with what he could only guess were folded clothes inside. The smell of clean laundry floated into his nose and he opened it, revealing sweatpants and sweatshirts. He grabbed a sweatshirt without second thought and threw it over his shoulders, looking around suspiciously. It would be sufficient until he found out where the hell he was.

He zipped it up halfway and caught the woman's scent again. It was getting weaker every second, so Logan moved fast, turning down a few halls before walking towards yet another round door with an 'X' on it. He was beginning to seriously wonder if he was going insane or just going in circles. Or perhaps both.

"_Where are you going?_"

Logan whirled around again, searching for anything that might tell him who the hell was stalking him. It almost sounded like the voice had been inside his mind, but he hadn't gotten hit _that_ hard, had he? Maybe he was in an asylum…

He ducked around a corner and hid, waiting for something to happen, all the while smelling the air in hopes of identifying someone other than the woman with the gingerbread scent. A door opened behind him to reveal a white circular room – an elevator, perhaps?

"_Over here._"

Logan stepped in, his entire body tense and ready to attack. Not only could he not smell anyone in the immediate area, but a voice was inside his head, and it was telling him where to go.

And he was listening.

The door closed before he had the chance to step back out and analyze the danger of following voices in his head. He tried to breathe deeply, hoping that it might calm his racing heart, but it was very little help. In a matter of ten seconds, the door opened again, and Logan's nose was assaulted with a variety of smells; wood, plants, paint…

He stepped out of the elevator and walked slowly down the hall to his left. It was a long hall, with chairs and tables positioned every few doors, and nice looking lamps perched on the tables and hanging from the ceilings. Paintings and portraits hung on the walls between the doors as well, and a few plants were set right beside the lamps on the tables. It looked like an upscale hotel to him, especially considering the variety of smells in the air that were unique but still belonged to people, like Marie and the woman he'd nearly choked. And none of them smelled sick. _Don't panic. Asylums aren't this nice…_

He was glad that he could now smell life around him, but the absence of the voice in his head still made him a little nervous. And his anxiety only got worse when he began hearing more of them.

"_Where are you going?_"

"_This way._"

"_He's over there._"

Logan's eyes widened and his heart began beating double time. He ran down the hall, stopping to hide around the corner. He looked around him wildly and saw large double doors right across from him. _Please lead outside…_

He was in front of the doors in two strides, his hands on the doorknobs when he heard the voice of what sounded like a young boy. "Let's go!"

And then he heard another. "What's your hurry?"

A terrible time to be interrupted, but Logan thanked the heavens that the sound was coming from down the hall and not in his mind. Still, he cursed under his breath and looked around for a place to hide. He ran behind a large wooden pillar as he heard a stampede of children climbing down the steps. He paid little attention to what they said, only shifted his position to the other side of the pillar so that there was no chance of them seeing him.

He looked back to make sure that they were far enough down the hall that he could relax. He thought about going back to the doors he'd seen before, but he heard them open and panicked. He sprinted in the opposite direction, leapt over a coffee table with ease and opened the doors in front of him, looking behind him to make sure he hadn't been seen.

He slipped into the room and shut the door, inhaling deeply to try to calm himself. And the first scent to drift into his nose was the scent of other people in the room. _Do you hate me that much, God,_ he wondered as he slowly turned around.

Five children were sitting in chairs around the desk of an old man who sat behind it. The children eyed him curiously, but he paid them no mind. Children so small weren't much of a threat.

"Good morning, Logan," the old man said calmly.

Logan's already visible frown deepened. The voice from inside his head… and it knew his name?

"So," the man said, turning back to the children. "I'd like your definitions of weak and strong anthropic principals on my desk on Wednesday, all right? That'll be all."

The children began gathering their things and, one by one, they exited the room, taking the time to stare at Logan curiously. One of the girls ran back to her chair to get her bag, and at least had the good sense not stare at Logan as the others had.

"Bye professor," she said lightly.

"Bye, Kitty," he returned happily.

The girl raced out the door after her friends, and Logan followed her movement. The door had already closed by now, and she walked right through it without pausing. Logan jumped and looked back at the old man sitting behind the desk. Perhaps he _wasn't_ stronger than those children.

"Physics," he said, holding up a textbook by way of explanation. With a kind smile, he said, "I'm Charles Xavier. Would you like some breakfast?"

It figured that the old man would want to feed him before offering him any answers. If he'd been inside Logan's mind to talk to him, then he must know that Logan had a _long_ list of questions, none of which had anything to do with food. "Where am I?" he demanded.

"Westchester, New York," Xavier replied, rolling out into plain view in a wheelchair. "You were attacked. My people brought you hear for medical attention."

My people? Medical attention? "I don't need medical attention," Logan said, trying not to growl in annoyance.

"Yes, of course," Xavier whispered in wonderment, as though he understood. Or perhaps he'd observed Logan's mutation in action? The fact that he'd said 'my people' suggested that he was in charge.

If that were the case, then he should know where Marie was. It made sense, if this old man knew Logan – and by name, at that. Logan smelled the air, but there was no trace of Marie's unique peppermint scent. Only the odd smells left behind by the children and the old man's scent, which smelled a lot like pine. "Where's the girl?"

"Rogue? She's here. She's fine."

Xavier's voice was too easy, too laid back and kind. Trusting strangers was dangerous, even seemingly harmless bald old men in wheelchairs. "Really?" Logan growled.

The man simply stared at him, and the door opened two seconds later. Logan stood perfectly still, his glare fixed on the old man. But when the scent of their visitor wafted into the room, his anger evaporated and Logan tried not to let his knees buckle out from under him.

It was the same exotic scent he'd picked out before slipping into darkness up in Canada, but that had been her scent carried on the wind, and was mild in comparison to standing next to her. It had been powerful before, but now it set his lungs on fire in a way he never could have imagined. The scent of her skin was like a rainforest just after a downpour. A multitude of different plant scents radiated off of her, but every single one was absolutely hers.

With grace that would put an angel to shame, the woman walked into the room and stood right in front of Logan, looking at him with mild, though innocent curiosity. Not only was her scent addicting and powerful, but she was also unbelievably beautiful. Her skin was the color of milk chocolate, her eyes cerulean blue, and her hair was frosty white like the snow he'd been surrounded by in Canada. He'd never seen anything like her, but he tensed automatically. Someone so beautiful _had_ to be danger.

"Ah, Logan, I'd like you to meet Ororo Munroe, also called Storm."

"Hello," she said politely, her voice as captivating as everything else about her.

Logan looked her up and down, trying to form a coherent sentence or even a coherent thought. He was vaguely aware that Xavier was still talking, but only caught a few key words. Scott… Summers… Cyclops…

The last one was strange enough to pull his attention away from her and he turned to the door. A man with sunglasses was standing in the doorway. He held out his hand for Logan to shake, and though he looked friendly enough, Logan simply stared at it, still too dazzled by Ororo Munroe.

How had he missed this man's arrival? Not only should Logan have been able to pick up the man's scent, but he had been standing in Logan's peripheral vision, _and _he should have heard his pulse. But Logan had been staring at Ororo, feeling her calm pulse and smelling a scent that dominated his lungs entirely. Was it possible that he was so dazzled by her that all of his senses went to hell? Her scent was dangerously powerful, and he wasn't sure that he liked that.

Apparently misinterpreting Logan's stare, the man Xavier had called Cyclops dropped his hand and the friendly smile slowly disappeared.

"They saved your life," Xavier said, obviously taking Logan's stare the same way Cyclops had. Logan turned back to the professor, but heard someone else enter the room. His head turned back to the doorway, thankful that this Ororo Munroe hadn't completely robbed him of all his senses.

The woman from the sterile room walked in, her heartbeat picking up as she walked right past Logan without looking at him. Logan followed her with his eyes and nose. She walked right past him to stand beside Xavier in his wheelchair. She had been close enough to touch, and when he inhaled, all he could smell was the rainforest. In fact, the old man's pine smell was completely gone too, Logan didn't even know what Cyclops smelled like. _That can't be good, _he thought, trying not to let it panic him.

"I believe you've already met Dr. Jean Grey," Xavier said, his voice heavy with implication, as though he knew what Logan had done to her. _What, she's not cool enough for a codename?_

"You're in my school for the gifted," Xavier continued. "For mutants. You'll be safe here from Magneto?"

Logan cocked an eyebrow. "What's a magneto?"

"A very powerful mutant who believes that a war is brewing between mutants and the rest of humanity. I've been following his activities for some time. The man who attacked you is an associate of his called Sabretooth."

The absolute seriousness in the old man's face made Logan laugh. "Sabretooth?" he clarified. Xavier nodded, still serious. He pointed to the white haired beauty, who wore an equally serious expression. "Storm." She said nothing, her kind but firm eyes fixed on his. He clicked his tongue and looked away before he was in danger of becoming slave to her gaze.

Cyclops was in the doorway, and Jean apparently wasn't special enough for a nickname. Logan turned back to Xavier, trying not to laugh too outrageously. "And what do they call you?" he asked cynically. "Wheels?" He laughed under his breath. He knew he was being terribly rude, but he couldn't help himself. "This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Looking at everyone's faces and carefully avoiding _hers, _Logan moved to walk out the door, only to find Sunglasses-in-a-well-lit-room standing at parade rest in front of his exit. His young face had lost all of its former friendliness, and it almost appeared like he was sizing Logan up. _Two can play that game,_ Logan thought. _I'm not going to like you, am I?_

Logan waited a second, wondering if maybe his glasses were a bit too dark for him to notice that he was trying to leave. "Cyclops, right?" Logan asked, grabbing the man by the front of his shirt and lifting him half an inch off the ground. He felt every heartbeat in the room increase. But, to his credit, Cyclops' pulse stayed calm and steady. "You want to get out of my way?"

Cyclops looked down at Logan's hands on his shirt. When Logan didn't let go, he looked up, past Logan at Xavier, as if asking permission. Logan raised his eyebrow for half a second. _Do you really think you can take me, Goggles?_

"Logan," Xavier said strongly. "It's been almost fifteen years, hasn't it? Living from day to day, moving from place to place, with no memory of who or what you are."

Logan dropped Cyclops, his eyes shifting about uncontrollably as he tried to tell himself that he wasn't hearing this stranger's accurate description of him. "Shut up!" he whispered heatedly, turning away from Cyclops and glaring at the old man. How the hell could he possibly know so much about him?

"Give me a chance," Xavier whispered back. "I may be able to help you find some answers."

"How do you know?" Logan's heart was beating erratically. More than anything, he wanted to know where he had come from. It might _finally _put an end to those damn nightmares he was always having. He could know who he was. His entire body was tense, ready to spring at anything that made a sudden move and his paranoia was so powerful that even Ororo Munroe's scent was momentarily forgotten.

"_You're not the only one with gifts_," Xavier said. Logan heard it with perfect clarity, but the old man hadn't moved his lips at all.

"_Where are you going?_"

"_Where's he going?_"

"_He's over there._"

Logan looked around him wildly.

"_What are you doing?_"

"_Over here._"

Logan finally stared at Xavier, and realized that the other voices were inside of the old man's head, and they were probably spilling over into Logan's head. Code names, gifts… Logan finally understood; all of their scents were different than that of a human's because they were all mutants. Ororo, Jean, Xavier, Scott – though he didn't yet know the scent of the last one.

Unable to help himself, Logan felt his expression turn from sour to curious. "What _is_ this place?"


	6. Mutant School

When Ororo Munroe had offered to personally give Logan a tour of the mansion, he could hardly refuse her. It wasn't as though he had anywhere to go, and if Marie was safe and content, as Xavier had said she was, then he had time to look around the place before he blew out and carried on with his life. _Unless someone can give me a reason to stay…_

But Xavier had – much to Logan's disappointment – pointed out that Ororo had a class to get back to, as lunch was surely over by now. She had politely bowed out with Jean and Scott in tow, leaving Logan and Xavier alone again.

"_Don't worry Logan_," the old man said inside his head. "_We'll stop by her class during the tour._"

Logan scowled as they began walking and thought loudly, _what would be the significance of that?_

"_Are you no longer curious about your friend, Marie?_"

Logan's scowl deepened, if that were possible. They both knew why Logan might be curious and even a little excited to see a flash of white hair in the near future, and they both knew that it had nothing to do with Marie. But he kept these thoughts to himself. As least, as best he could when walking next to someone that could read his mind.

"The dining rooms, kitchens and classrooms can all be found on this floor," Xavier said out loud, turning down a hall that looked much the same as the others. "The second and third floors upstairs are rooms for the children. The east wing holds the rooms for the adults. All the offices are on this floor as well."

"First class," Logan said appreciatively, looking around. It was clear that they weren't the least bit short on funds. "But not at all what I would've expected from what I saw downstairs."

"Anonymity is a mutant's first defense against the world's hostility," Xavier replied. "To the public, we're merely a school for gifted youngsters."

Xavier stopped at a large window by a grand staircase and looked out. Logan did the same and saw an impossibly large courtyard with children absolutely everywhere. A group of children were playing basketball on the court and one boy in particular was jumping at high speeds from one place to another, passing the ball to himself and scoring a point.

To the left, there was what looked like a more relaxed area, with low hanging trees and fountains. An older looking boy was being chased by his friends. To get away from them, he jumped up onto one of the fountains and ran across the water, hardly causing a ripple.

To his right was another secluded area. Jean, clad in one of the leather uniforms that he'd seen downstairs, stood in front of a table with her hand hovering over piles of disks normally used for target practice. Scott, wearing the male version of the suit, was also wearing an odd looking visor in place of his glasses. The disks floated into the air and flew towards Scott as though they had been catapulted. Scott seemed to be pushing a button or flicking a switch on his visor. Whatever it was, it released small red beams out, destroying the disks with accuracy before they came within three feet of him.

"So _that's_ his power," Logan muttered.

Xavier seemed to follow his gaze and hummed thoughtfully. "Cyclops, Storm and Jean were some of my first students. I protected them, taught them to control their powers and, in time, teach others to do the same."

"So are there other teachers? A school of this size can't function with just four teachers, can it?"

"There are a few others that stayed to teach, but not everyone has the patience for it. Our jobs are to teach them to use their powers, and to respect the power that they have rather than fear it or let it control them. Whether they decide to use that knowledge to their advantage in the real world or stay to teach is entirely up to them."

Xavier had moved on down the hall, and Logan turned away from the window to follow him. This hall was filled with glass doors and windows. Through them, Logan could see various classrooms filled with children and the teachers that were lecturing them.

"So where do the kids come from?" Logan asked, peering into the classrooms in search of Marie.

"The students are mostly runaways. Frightened, alone… Some with gifts so extreme that they've become a danger to themselves and those around them. Like your friend, Rogue." Xavier stopped in front of one of the doors, and Logan looked inside with him. Scanning the faces, he saw Marie, taking notes with something of a bored expression.

Logan smirked involuntarily. Human or mutant, school was school.

"So, what exactly is her…" Logan searched for the right word. "Deal?"

"Her power?" Xavier clarified, chuckling as they watched a boy create a ball of fire behind his back. "She has the power of absorption. She'll be incapable of physical human contact; probably for the rest of her life. And yet, here she is with others her own age, learning and being accepted rather than feared."

_Tough break, kid_, Logan thought. The boy that sat next to her reached out a hand and froze the ball of fire, which promptly fell to the ground and shattered.

"John!"

Logan looked up and saw Ororo standing at the front of the class, her hands on her hips. Her voice managed to hold its musical tone even when she chided the boy. Sunlight from windows behind her made her glow like a goddess.

Logan glanced at Xavier out of the corner of his eye and self consciously stopped that train of thought.

"Sorry," he boy said, though he didn't sound the least bit apologetic.

"Would you like to come up here and continue the lecture?"

"No thanks, I'm straight."

The children around him giggled quietly and Logan snorted. If that kid had given Logan that tone, he would've given the kid something to laugh about… Or at least make good on the threat and have the kid stand in front and lecture the class. Maybe make him wear a 'dunce' cap…

"You'll understand if I don't exactly have a waiting position as art professor waiting for you," Xavier said with a quiet laugh.

"Yeah, well, like you said, not everyone has the patience for it."

Ororo simply lifted a brow at the young boy and continued. "Now, as I was saying before I was interrupted by Mr. Allerdyce and his asinine shenanigans…" She paused, allowing the other children a moment to snicker at his expense. Logan smirked. "The Roman Empire, for centuries, persecuted and ostracized the Christians, to the extent that they were fed to lions for sport. Then, almost overnight, their religion rose to become the dominant faith in the empire.

"Can anyone tell me what caused the Christians to suddenly become accepted?"

"The Emperor became a Christian," Marie blurted, then blushed furiously, slinking down into her seat. "Sorry."

"No, no. You're right. Blurting of that kind isn't obnoxious or counterproductive, right John?"

"Absolutely, Professor Munroe," he replied cheerfully.

Logan cocked an eyebrow, which Xavier seemed to notice. "Storm and Pyro are quite close. She found him wandering the streets in Sydney, Australia a few years ago, a homeless orphan, filled with such intense hatred towards humans that he'd begun using his extraordinary power to terrorize and frighten humans. As Storm had been in a similar situation in her youth, she convinced him to come here. He has great potential, but needs careful teaching so as not to inspire him to fall back into that pattern. Storm has become something of a surrogate mother to him."

The boy that had frozen John's fireball turned to Marie and placed his hand on her desk. When he pulled it away, a flower made of ice sat there, and she smiled at him.

_At least she's making friends. _"What'll happen to her?" Logan asked.

"Well, that's up to her. Rejoin the world as an educated young woman, or stay on to teach others. To become what the children have affectionately called the X-Men."

X-Men. Well, that certainly explained the 'X' insignia that he had seen all over the place in the basement. Again, Xavier had moved on without giving any sort of indication. Logan gave Marie and Ororo one last glance before catching up to the professor.

"The school is merely our public face," he said when Logan had slowed at his side. He stopped and turned to a wall, which opened to reveal an elevator, much like the one Logan had rode up to this floor. "The lower levels, however, are an entirely different matter."

They rode the elevator in silence and the doors opened to reveal the same steel halls that Logan had breezed through in his attempt to escape. Xavier led the way down the halls, turning twice before stopping at one of the many massive circular doors and opening it. It was a hanger, with a large jet the likes of which Logan had never seen. Yet, despite the fact that he'd never taken a particular interest in air crafts, he somehow knew a few facts about the jet simply by looking at it. _Maybe I was in the Air Force…_

"Vertical take-off and landings," Logan muttered to himself.

"And instruments that allow it to fly in any weather. Storm could create dozens of tornadoes and the _Blackbird_ wouldn't even flinch."

"Impressive," he said, though he had _no _desire to test that theory. Logan stared at the jet for a moment longer before turning to Xavier. "But what for, if you're just educating mutants on how to control their powers?"

"Everyone here has abilities. Powers. Curses, until they can be controlled. All of us have hurt and been hurt. And none of us asked to be the way we are."

"I'm with you so far."

"When I was a boy, I discovered I had the power to control people's minds; make them think or do whatever I wanted. When I was fifteen, I read the mind of one of my teachers and saw that he was going to fail me simply because he didn't like me."

"Damn. I bet that pissed you off."

"It certainly did. I was so mad, in fact, that I put the suggestion into his mind that he was having a heart attack. He nearly died."

Logan's eyebrows shot up. He'd known that there'd been an air of quiet danger hovering over this man. Still, it was clear that he regretted what he'd done despite that fact that it'd been an angry adolescent mistake. Logan certainly couldn't say that he regretted some of the things he'd done to people in a fit of rage, and he'd been a fully grown adult. Granted, he only had fifteen years worth of memories...

"So what did you do?" Logan asked.

"I was terrified, as most mutants are when something unanticipated like that happens to them for the first time. I withdrew from everything, fearful that I might hurt someone else. I thought I was alone, but I was quite mistaken. When I was seventeen, I met a young man named Eric Lensherr. He, too, had an unusual power; he could create magnetic fields, enabling him to manipulate and control metal. He helped me to understand what I was and helped me find ways to control my powers. He also showed me that there were others like us. But as the years went by, prejudice and fear of mutants began to grow, and his faith in humans began to wane. Believing that humanity would never accept us, he grew angry and vengeful. He became Magneto."

Logan nodded. "Nice story, but it didn't really answer my question; why the jet, or the underground at all if you're just teaching?"

"There are mutants out there with incredible powers, Logan. And many who do not share my respect for mankind. If no one is equipped to oppose them, humanity's days could be over."

"And you and your X-Men are the opposition?"

"Evil men succeed when good men do nothing. A famous quote that Eric taught me once."

"Ironic."

"Indeed."

Xavier exited the hanger with Logan in tow. "I'll make a deal with you, Logan," he said suddenly. "Give me forty-eight hours to find out what Magneto wants with you. And I give you my word that I will use all my power to help you piece together what you've lost and what you're looking for."

Logan stopped walking and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Schools, mutants, jets, beautiful red haired doctors and even more beautiful white haired teachers… it was a lot to take in.

"_I realize that this isn't exactly what you had in mind when you were thinking, 'unless someone can give me a reason to stay.' "_

Logan cracked one eye openand gave Xavier a pointed glare. Still, what did he have to lose by taking advantage of staying for a few days? "Forty-eight hours old man," Logan said grudgingly. "Cross me, and I won't feel any guilt about what I do."


	7. Exam Results

Ugh! I am absolutely insane when it comes to editing and re-editing and re-re-editing and then editing my editing... You get the idea: I do it too much, and there's STILL mistakes. Oh well, whatev. So, without further ado, I give you Chapter 7. And, once again, thank you to all my readers, who inspire me to keep going even when I don't want to.

* * *

Xavier led Logan down a few more of the confusing metal halls and into the sterile room that Logan had been in to begin with. He turned his nose up, but said nothing. He didn't like medical facilities of any kind, but as he wasn't in need of any medical care, perhaps this wouldn't be a terrible experience. _At least it's _not _an asylum..._

"To begin with, I'd like to have Dr. Grey examine you, if that's all right with you."

_That's fine by me,_ Logan thought with a smirk. But when Jean Grey walked in without so much as looking at Logan or even Xavier, he wondered if this was going to be a fun examination or a frightening one. Noting the very stern look on her face, Logan thought, _Hell, I'd settle of a boring one._

"I'll leave you to your work then," Xavier said quietly, leaving Logan to fend for himself.

Dr. Grey worked with a deeply concentrated look on her face, giving sharp demands every now and then to Logan, which he obeyed for fear that she might do something to him. It occurred to him that he still didn't know her power, and that made him even more ill at ease. For all he knew, she could turn him inside out or erase his very existence.

After a few tests, she ordered him to lie down on the bed of what looked like an MRI machine. Logan had been free to study her this entire time, and it wasn't hard to see that she was probably still a little wary of him, as she avoided touching his flesh or making eye contact.

But, in his defense, she had been trying to inject him with something. Unaware of where he was or what was being injected into him, he had panicked and let his instincts take over. For all he'd known, he was being experimented on. When he thought about it, the setting of everything hadn't been too unlike his violent nightmares…

But it seemed that he might be here for a while, if this Magneto character was indeed after him. He may as well make nice. He glanced at her throat and noted that, while the bruises were so slight that only his keen eyes could catch them, they were still there. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" She seemed genuinely surprised.

That, in turn, surprised him. "If I hurt you," he clarified.

She gave him a small smile and a very slight nod. He took that to mean that she accepted his apology. _Well, that was easy, _he thought with a smirk, inhaling her gingerbread scent. She drifted over to her computer and began flicking switches and twisting knobs. "So," he began, trying to fill the silence, "couldn't wait to get my shirt off again, eh?"

He heard her inhale sharply, but when he turned to smile up at her, her expression was indignant. She pushed a button and Logan smoothly slid into the MRI. _I guess not._

It was dark at first, then lit up and began making an awful racket. Logan was sure that, even by human standards, it was very bright and loud. He narrowed his eyes against the bright light, and resisted the urge to cover his ears. He idly wondered if she had the power to make the machine brighter and louder on purpose.

* * *

Logan dressed at a snail's pace as Jean gave Scott, Xavier, and Ororo a brief summery of her findings. He wanted to know what they had to say about him, and he knew that they'd be too caught up in the discussion to realize that he was eavesdropping. In reality, he knew that they probably wouldn't know much more about him than he knew about himself, but he still wanted to hear what they had to say.

"The metal is an alloy called adamantium," Jean began after the other three had had a minute to study Logan's skeleton. "Supposedly indestructible. It's been surgically grafted to his entire skeleton."

"How could he have survived a procedure like that," Ororo asked, her voice filled with awe.

"His mutation," Jean answered. "He has uncharted regenerative capability, which enables him to heal rapidly. This also makes his age impossible to determine. He could very well be older than you, professor."

Logan frowned at that. It sounded at little far fetched, but it would certainly explain why he had memories of fighting in both World Wars. And, considering everything that he had seen and heard today, perhaps it wasn't all that out of the ordinary.

"Is it something similar to your regenerative ability, Storm?" Scott asked.

"I don't think so," she admitted. "If I get an injury of any kind, I heal as normally as the next person. I just don't really age. If I remember correctly, professor, you described my regenerative ability as something similar to how the weather recycles water."

"That's more or less how it works," Xavier agreed. "While you continue to age, your body will maintain the youth and strength of your prime. While the water that falls on the earth is millions of years old, it looks the same now as it did then."

"So are we immortal?" Ororo asked.

"I'm not quite sure, but it's clear that you'll both live much longer than the rest of us. For all we know, he's lived longer than all our years combined. It seems that Logan is able to survive near death experiences more or less unscathed. It only took him twelve hours to fully recover from the concussion that he received from Sabretooth, and I'm not sure there are many mutants out there that could have survived having liquid metal injected into their entire skeleton."

"Who did this to him," Scott asked, sounding more curious than concerned.

Logan heard Jean shift her balance. "He doesn't remember. Nor does he remember anything about his life before it happened."

"Memory gone, metal bones..."

"Experimentation on mutants," Xavier said gravely. "It's not unheard of but, as I said, I've never seen anything like this before."

"What do you think Magneto wants with him?" Scott asked.

"Well," Ororo began, "his bones are metal, and Magneto controls metal."

"But if this adamantium is indestructible like Jean said, then how would he be able to manipulate the shape of it?"

"Eric doesn't have to manipulate the shape of metal in order to be in control of it," Xavier pointed out. "Besides, I'm not entirely sure that it's Logan that Magneto wants."

By now, Logan was completely dressed and engrossed in the conversation. To hear that both he and Ororo were basically immortal was fascinating, to say the least. But that last statement had rubbed him the wrong way. Had he just gone through all of that poking and prodding for nothing? He could have been back in Canada hours ago? Not that he had anything to go back to, but he didn't like feeling like he was _forced_ to be anywhere.

He finally stepped out into full view of the X-Men and glared at Xavier. "Then why the hell am I here?"

"Because I'm not _entirely_ sure," Xavier returned shortly, as though he'd known all along that Logan had been listening in. "It's better to be safe than sorry. And we had a deal, did we not?"

"Yeah, whatever," he muttered, noticing that the others – Scott, in particular – looked a tad indignant that they knew nothing about this deal. Logan simply shrugged. He really didn't care either way. It wasn't as if he had anything to hide from them.

"You haven't eaten in about three days, Logan," Xavier observed. "Storm, why don't you show Logan where the kitchen is so he can find something to eat. Regenerative ability or not, nourishment is a necessity for all living things."

Logan was going to refuse and ask how the hell Xavier knew that he hadn't eaten in three days, but stopped short. Had he told Ororo to do it?

"Sure thing, professor," she said. She stood gracefully and seemed to float on air towards the door. He was content to just admire the sway of her hips, but she stopped and turned to him with an amused expression.

"Are you not hungry, Logan?" she asked innocently.

"I am actually. I'm getting hungrier every second."

She cocked an eyebrow at him, much as she had to the kid – John, wasn't it? – earlier that day. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw both Jean and Scott look up in surprise, then look to their friend for her reaction.

"Well, I don't mind showing you to the kitchen," Ororo said smoothly, "but this isn't a bed and breakfast."

"I apologize for not hopping to," he said with a smirk. "I was just admiring your gentle nature and kind disposition."

She smirked back and Logan's heart jumped into his throat. _Definitely dangerous._ "You can admire closer if you follow me rather than stare at my backside," she whispered, low enough that only his sensitive ears caught it.

His eyes widened and he followed her out the door. He made it three steps out the door before she grabbed his bicep and roughly slammed him against the wall with a loud thud. He was so taken aback that she nearly knocked the wind out of him, and when he was able to breathe again, the scent of her skin made him feel dizzy and slightly intoxicated.

"Look here, Logan," she said quietly, her blue eyes blazing. "I don't know how you're used to treating women, but I guarantee that you're not going to treat me the way you would treat any old dollar-a-holler trick that can be found at the bar! I'm not a piece of meat and I will not be looked upon as such. Got it?"

He nodded. "Yeah, sure! I'm sorry! Shit!"

She narrowed her eyes at him and gave him one last rough shove before continuing down the hall. Logan stared after her, rubbing his arm absently. He pulled his half zipped sweatshirt aside and saw a light pink print where her hand had been. Her grip hadn't hurt him in the slightest, but he could have sworn that some kind of electric current had shocked him when she tightened her grip. Her strength had caught him off guard. She had a lot of physical strength hidden in those petite limbs.

"The kitchen is upstairs," she said, her pleasant and almost cheerful voice bouncing off the bare walls. Hesitantly, Logan followed the trail that her scent left behind, wondering if it was a good idea to pursue this deadly (possibly bipolar) force for the next two days, or if he might want to settle for someone a little safer, like Jean.


	8. Playful Banter

Ok, so I'm going on a trip to Arizona on Wednesday, and I'll be gone partying with my bestest friend for an entire week! Though I'll still be working, I'll more than likely be unable to post anything for the whole week. But, before you pull out various raw vegetables and proceed to throw them at me, I'd like to note that I'll be posting five - yes, go back and read it again – FIVE chapters before I leave for my much needed vacation. NOW, here is chapter eight, and expect chapter nine tomorrow! :D

* * *

Ororo had led him to the kitchen as promised, wished him a good night, and then left him to fend for himself, shortly stating that Jean would come to collect him in half an hour to take him to his room.

Logan didn't have much of an appetite even after all of the day's excitement, so he pulled an apple out of the fridge and ate it while waiting for Jean, all the while thinking of Ororo Munroe.

She was fierce. The fire and passion in her eyes excited him when he thought back to the way she'd glared at him. But it was more than clear that she had no interest in him whatsoever. She was an independent woman, and it seemed that she preferred it that way. Or perhaps she had a boyfriend or maybe even a husband. He hadn't stopped to glance at her hand, and in retrospect it seemed like that might have been a good idea.

And Jean Grey…

Though he'd been much more forward with her during his examination, she hadn't resorted to attempting to physically assault him. Either she hadn't minded that he was being playful, or she hadn't cared. Either way, it seemed that he had a better shot with Jean.

Still, it didn't seem quite right to him. His pulse didn't ignite when he looked at Jean the way it did when he looked at Ororo. While Jean's gingerbread scent was pleasant enough, Ororo's was dominating, much like she seemed to be. Jean seemed calm and reserved both above and below the surface. Ororo had a calm surface, but Logan was sure that, if he'd looked hard enough when they'd first met, he'd have seen that passion fighting below the surface like a dam about to break. _Or a raging storm,_ he thought with a smirk.

"Hello, Logan," Jean said lazily, leaning against the entrance frame, studying him.

"Jean," he said with a smirk and slight nod.

"Bedtime."

"You going to tuck me in?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Hardly. I'm only obligated to show you to your room." She smirked and threw him a wink. "However, I may stick around to make sure that you actually brush your teeth instead of just run your toothbrush under the water."

"How did you know?"

"A woman can sense these things." She turned to leave without giving warning and Logan followed her without question.

They enjoyed easy chatter while they traveled up the stairs and down the various halls of the school. He'd been correct in pegging Jean to be more laid-back than Ororo. Or perhaps his small advances just didn't do anything for her. She hardly threw him a bone, despite what their conversation may have seemed like from the outside. Logan liked her nonchalance, if only for the reason that it made her more of a challenge, and Logan liked a good challenge.

Arriving at Logan's temporary room, Jean headed straight into the dark for the lamp to give them light. Logan's sight was better than perfect in the dark, but he didn't expect her to know that, and he wasn't going to tell her. Though he wouldn't hurt or stalk her, knowledge like that might frighten her when she was trying to sleep at night. _Or excite her,_ he thought with a smirk.

"I think you'll be comfortable here," Jean said, turning on the first lamp and crossing the room to turn on the other.

"Where's your room?" he asked, standing at the door with his arms clasped behind his back. He didn't particularly care where it was, but he was running out of questions for her. He'd spoken more today than he had in the past month, and hadn't realized how much he missed human contact.

_Well, maybe not human…_

"With Scott, down the hall," she replied easily

He hid a smirk at the fact that she'd made sure to mention Scott's name. Any fool could assume that the two were together, but he'd never have known for sure without this declaration. And it seemed that she wanted Logan to know that she was taken. _As if that would stop me._

Logan nodded and went to the closet, and was pleased to find that it was filled with plenty of clothes. _Anything_ was better than these ratty jeans and sweatshirt, although he noted that he wouldn't be caught dead in a few of the clothes they'd provided him with.

"Is that your gift," he asked, trying to be playful. "Putting up with that guy?" Scott was a bit of a tight-ass, in Logan's opinion, but she obviously knew him better and saw something in him that he didn't. _To each his own._

Jean stared at him for a second, possibly trying to judge whether or not he was being serious. "Actually, I'm telekinetic; I can move things with my mind."

"Really? What kinds of things?" he turned to face her fully and she glared at him. For a spit second, he worried that he might burst into flames, but he heard the closet doors shut behind him. He turned back to look at the closet in amazement.

"All kinds of things," she said smugly. He looked back at her and she smiled a little. "I also have some telepathic ability."

"What? Like your professor?"

"Nowhere near that powerful," she admitted, all modesty now. "But he's teaching me to develop it."

Logan picked up the faint, burnt wood scent that he'd come to recognize as Scott traveling down the hall and began advancing on Jean, his eyes locked on her. "I'm sure he is," he said, stopping in front of her. "So read my mind."

"I'd rather not," she said dismissively.

"Come on," he badgered, hearing Scott's footsteps getting closer. He dropped his voice. "You afraid you might like it?"

"I doubt it," she whispered back with a confident smile.

He tried not to smile back. He found her attractive, sure, and the fact that she was already taken made the chase that much more fun. But, despite how much he was flirting with her, she almost felt like a long lost sister. Part of him felt badly for trying to get her to like him, but it was a very small part of him. It wasn't as though she was fighting tooth and nail to stop him. If he had to guess, he'd have said that she was enjoying their banter as much as he was.

Despite her assurance that his thoughts wouldn't entice her, he could see the curiosity eating at her. Perhaps she wasn't as powerful as the professor, but did she need to be to get inside his mind? Not necessarily to read it like an open book, as she had made clear, but at least to see if she could do it.

Logan calmly waited. In a matter of seconds, she lifted her hands and positioned them on either side of his head, staring into his eyes intensely. She then closed her eyes and exhaled loudly.

He tried not to scowl as he noticed the light rainforest scent that mixed in with Jean's gingerbread. They must have hugged or something before Jean came to collect Logan from the kitchen, and although Logan tried to focus on the sugary scent of Jean, Ororo's scent beat it out of his lungs like a grade school bully.

_Excellent…_

He heard Scott at the door, and was reminded that Jean was reading his mind. He panicked, wondering if she had heard all of those thoughts, but kept his expression impassive, just in case.

Jean's eyebrow twitched and, not half a second later, she began frowning and her eyes snapped open as she inhaled sharply. Logan grabbed her hands, keeping his face perfectly calm and trying not to sound too eager. "What do you see?" he whispered. He'd known Jean less than twelve hours, but he knew in the pit of his stomach that if she had heard his thoughts about Ororo, she wouldn't have reacted this way. She'd seen something else. Something about his past, perhaps?

She stared at Logan for a second, her heart beating wildly, and then her gaze turned to the door behind him. "Scott."

He turned to the door and released her hands, pretending that he was noticing Scott for the first time as well. Scott stood at the door expectantly, his mouth firmly shut. He wanted Jean out of the room. Neither of them had to be telepathic to know that.

"Goodnight, Logan," she said, avoiding his gaze and walking past him and out of the room.

Logan turned to the space where she had been, staring off into space. Ororo's scent was gone, thankfully, but now Jean's was too, and Scott's heated temper seemed to be polluting the air in Logan's new room. It smelled like the room was on fire.

Scott stood perfectly still in the doorway, his regular glasses on and staring pointedly at Logan. Logan put on a smirk, turning casually to Scott. "Are you going to tell me to stay away from your girl?"

"Well, if I had to do that, she wouldn't be my girl," he replied smoothly.

"Hmm." Logan turned around, fully facing Scott and walking towards him. "Well, then, I guess you've got nothing to worry about, do you, _Cyclops_?" _Besides the fact that I'm so delectable and darn good looking._

Scott didn't miss a beat. "Yeah, it must just burn you up that a boy like me saved your life, huh?" he asked with a cheeky smirk.

_Boy being the operative word,_ Logan thought, scowling nonetheless.

"You ought to be careful," Scott warned. "I might not be there next time."

Logan resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he tried shutting the door. Whether he was willing to admit it or not, there was a tiny part of Scott that was jealous. It probably had nothing to do with feeling threatened by Logan or thinking that Jean might like him… it was just the way men were.

"Oh, and, Logan?" Scott's voice dropped, his tone now serious. "Stay away from my girl."

Scott shut the door for him and Logan glared at it for a good minute. He wasn't going to let Goggles tell him what he could and couldn't do. And besides, he kind of liked Jean. Jean wasn't Scott's property. If she wanted to hang around him, she should be able to.

"So suck it, Scott," he muttered, turning out the lights and dressing for bed with a scowl.


	9. Reoccuring Dream

Well, as promised, here's chapter nine of the story! A little on the short side, I know, but chapter ten is HELLA long, and there's more Rolo in there as well! AND I'll be posting it tomorrow!

* * *

Logan hated sleeping, but he hadn't actually had a good night's sleep in a few weeks. And hopefully his new surroundings would occupy his mind enough to keep the nightmares at bay. He doubted that it would work out that way, but there was no harm in trying. What was the worst that could happen?

He settled into the large bed, which was quite comfortable, and fell asleep within seconds

-

Flashes of green lit up behind his eyes.

Water…

Boiling metal…

Needles…

It was the same as every other nightmare, but it had never been this vivid. As clear as the first time he'd had this nightmare. So vivid that he felt the pain of their torture.

Bio hazard suits…

Champagne…

Marks on his skin, indicating incision and injection sites…

Marie's scent…

_Marie?!_ He inhaled deeply and it was indeed peppermint. What the hell was she doing here?

"Logan."

Her voice sounded like a whisper, but it could simply be because they had her locked in another room.

"Logan."

Her voice was louder now. Were they hurting her? He had to help her! If they were putting her through a fraction of the pain they were putting him through…

He felt the searing pain of boiling metal being injected into his bones. He tried to scream, but he couldn't breathe this time. Water filled his lungs and the pain only got worse…

His eyes snapped open. With an angry cry, he pushed his claws out and drove them into the man that was injecting him. By the time his brain caught up with his actions, he realized that he hadn't stabbed his torturer. His pulse stopped altogether.

Marie was staring at him with a pained expression, quietly gasping for breath. He looked down, horrified to see that his claws had sliced through her completely. He quickly withdrew them and stared at her, too horrified by what he had done to speak.

She was still gasping, and appeared to be trying not to scream. _Do something,_ his own mind screamed, at her and at himself.

"Help me," he said weakly, unsure of what else he could do. She winced and staggered back, though still managed to stay on her feet. And still managed to avoid calling for help of any kind for herself.

Logan finally found his voice, and filled his lungs. "Somebody help!"

He looked back at her, horror and apology in his eyes, which he felt were growing wet. He was watching her die in front of him, because he couldn't separate his dreams from reality. He'd never forgive himself for this, but she didn't look the least bit angry with him or even scared. She looked… determined.

She reached out and lightly touched his cheek, and he immediately felt every vein in his body pulse. It was an odd feeling, and it hurt a little, but the pain was beginning to disappear from her eyes and he realized what she was doing; she was healing herself, by taking his power. Certainly he could endure the pain of her touch if it meant that she'd live. He certainly deserved more pain than he was feeling.

He was vaguely aware of light and noise and the smell of people nearby, but his mind was so scrambled that none of it registered coherently in his mind. At least, until _she _walked in. He didn't see the look on her face, or hear anything she said – if she had even spoken – but her scent hit him full force. He wasn't aware of what happened next. All he knew was that, for the second time, her scent had allowed him to let go of consciousness and pain.

-

"Logan?"

Logan inhaled sharply before opening his eyes. Xavier was sitting next to his bed, peering curiously at him. He could smell that Jean had recently been in the room, and he could probably expect her to be back any minute since he was now awake. He must have been in bad shape if he required this much attention. "What happened? Is she all right?"

"She'll be all right," he assured Logan.

That was a relief. He'd been so terrified that he'd killed her… "What did she do to me?"

"Whenever Rogue touches someone, she takes their energy, their life force," he explained calmly. "In the case of mutants, she absorbs their gifts for a short while. In your case, your ability to heal."

That sounded familiar. Hadn't be been thinking that before he'd passed out? Everything but _her _scent was hazy. He tried not to growl in frustration. "I feel like she almost killed me," he said instead.

"If she'd held on any longer, she could have."

Logan turned to look at Xavier. He had been exaggerating, but it seemed that the danger had been more real than he'd realized.

"Jean will be here in a minute to check on you again. I'll leave you to rest."

Just as Xavier made it to the door, Jean opened it for him from the other side and moved aside for him to pass. She left the door opened behind her and handed Logan some white pills and a glass of water, which he downed without protest.

"You know, we have to stop meeting like this," Logan said with a tired smirk.

"Now what makes you think I want to see you in this condition every time we meet?"

"Well, you're always there when I wake up. That's not so bad from this end."

She gave him a kind smile. "I've got some papers to grade, but I'll be just down the hall. If you need anything, shout."

"You know, I think I'd sleep better if you stayed," he said, catching her wrist.

She carefully extracted her wrist from his grip, her expression remaining calm. "Somehow I doubt that."

He gave her a wink. "Yeah, so do I."

She turned to the door and left, a wide smile playing across her lips. "Sleep well, Logan."

With a sigh, Logan realized that he'd never have gotten away with talk like that with little Ms. I'm-Not-A-Piece-Of-Meat-Nor-Will-I-Be-Treated-As-Such. It was too bad that she didn't have a sense of humor like Jean did. It was only playful banter, not a marriage proposal, nor verbal abuse.

Logan closed his eyes to shield himself from the headache that he was getting from thinking too much, and fell into a dreamless sleep within seconds. Thankfully, he didn't dream, although every once in a while he caught flashes of white hair and blue eyes.


	10. Teen Angst

Here is chapter ten! And, as always, thank you to my reviewers who always make me smile. ENJOY!

* * *

Logan woke to a dark room and a very dry throat. Looking at the clock, he saw that it was nearly nine at night.

_I guess she _did _nearly kill me_, he thought groggily, slowly sitting up and getting out of the bed. He couldn't remember a time that he had slept for so long, and although he could go for days without food or sleep, he did need water. Badly.

Jean had told him to holler if he needed anything, but he didn't want to be a burden, and he was sure that Scott wouldn't appreciate it if she got pulled away from whatever work she was doing just to fetch him a glass of water. Normally, Logan wouldn't care, but he really didn't feel like hearing Scott's mouth at the moment.

It was better for everyone if he just got it himself.

He didn't bother stopping to put a shirt on as he stumbled down to the kitchen and collected a glass out of the cupboard, filling it up in the sink. He downed the full glass and filled it again, drinking only half. He turned around to lean back against the counter and a dark blue cloth covered his face. He pulled the shirt off of his face to reveal Ororo leaning on the frame of the entrance, in much the same way that Jean had the night before. But while Jean's easy posture had been appealing at best, Ororo's aggressive stance was downright exciting.

But he flashed back to their encounter downstairs and restrained himself. Blatant flirting wasn't going to get him anywhere with this woman. She was powerful and she was clever. Perhaps if he didn't openly gawk at her as he had the night before than he wouldn't be manhandled by a woman.

"Thanks," he said with a smirk. "I knew I'd find my shirt if I just looked in the kitchen."

She cocked an eyebrow, but didn't seem angry or the least bit defensive. She looked bored. "This is a school, Logan. Some of these kids are just reaching puberty and many of them have yet to hit it. There's no reason why you should be allowed to parade your bare chest around when I can hardly get away with wearing my silk pajamas outside of my room."

He smirked coyly, but was careful to keep his eyes on hers. "Silk pajamas? Now why would you volunteer that information?"

She returned his coy smile. There was no hint of malice in her eyes, and his pulse accelerated. "Because you'll never see them. Put the shirt on, Logan."

Setting the glass down on the counter, he pulled the shirt over his head slowly and put the shirt on, flexing every muscle he was in control of. He listened hard and was delighted when he heard her pulse quicken. It was rather infinitesimal, if he was going to be honest with himself. A machine wouldn't have detected the increase, but he'd take what he could get.

"So, you must have followed me out of my room if you knew that I needed a shirt," he said when he'd finally managed to put the shirt on completely.

"Don't flatter yourself," she said, rolling her eyes – which, he noticed, gave his abs one last glimpse before returning to his face. "I've seen better. But I actually did follow you, with the purpose of asking you this: when did Rogue visit you?"

Logan frowned. "Last night, when I…" he ground his teeth, unable to finish the sentence even in his mind.

She scowled at him, blue eyes a little brighter. "Don't be a smartass. I mean after that."

"I'm not being a smartass," he said seriously. "The last time I saw her was when she took my power."

The scowl slid away to reveal a very worried expression. "So you haven't seen her all day?"

"No. When I first woke up the professor explained what happened, Jean gave me some pills and I fell back asleep. I only woke up a few minutes ago. Doesn't she have a class with you or something?"

"Yes," she said grimly, staring off into space. "She wasn't in my class today, or any of her classes, for that matter. I told the other teachers not to worry because I figured that she was with you."

Logan felt the color drain from his face. "Well, has anyone else seen her?"

"We're about to find out," she said, her face set with hard determination. "Go get dressed and head to the elevator. I'll ask a few of her friends if they've seen her and if they haven't, we'll go get Xavier. He'll know how to find her."

Logan nodded and left the kitchen. She was nowhere to be seen, and his hearing told him that she was already up the stairs, sprinting down the hall. Through his haze of worry for Marie, he allowed himself a quick moment of astonishment at her strength _and_ speed.

Logan made it to his room and dressed in record time, sprinting to the elevator to find Ororo already waiting for him. Fear seized his heart as she punched the button without a word and they got into the elevator.

_My fault. My fault. This is all my FAULT!_

After an unbearably long ride, the elevator doors opened and Ororo briskly lead the way through the various halls that Logan would have gotten lost in. As fast as she was moving, she didn't hesitate or lose her way once and as soon as Ororo pointed to their destination, Logan picked up the pace and breezed past her.

"Where is she," he demanded as soon as the doors opened.

"Who?" Scott asked.

"Rogue." Xavier frowned, as though deep in thought. "She's gone."

_I _know_ that she's gone,_ Logan thought impatiently. _I need to know _where_ she's gone to._

"Come with me," Xavier said, wheeling himself out into the mass of identical halls, none of which lead upstairs or to the jet that they had.

"What are we doing?" Logan snapped as he followed behind. "Why aren't we looking for her?"

"We are," Scott said, as though that were perfectly obvious.

Xavier patiently waited for some sort of eye scanner to identify him. "Welcome, professor," a computer voice said, opening the round steel doors.

"Welcome to Cerebro."

Xavier wheeled himself in, and Logan absently followed him, thinking nothing of it. "This certainly is a big, round room," he stated lamely, for lack of anything else to say. How the hell did they expect this room to find Marie? Was it some kind of super computer-locater-tracker…

"The brain waves of mutants are different from average human beings," Xavier explained, possibly having read the last statement in his mind. "Just like you can tell mutants apart from humans by their unique scents, I can identify brain activity to tell them apart. This device amplifies my power, allowing me to locate mutants across great distances. That's how I intend to find Rogue."

Well, if it was so easy to find Marie in this manner… "Why don't you just use it to find Magneto?"

"I've been trying. But he seems to have found some way to shield himself from it."

Logan shrugged. Some part of him had expected an answer like that. Xavier seemed to have plenty of answers, but when it came to solutions… "How would he know how to do that?" Logan asked.

"Because he helped me build it."

Well, he had said that they'd been friends once upon a time. "Now, if you'll excuse me…" Xavier picked up a strange looking metal device with thick chords and placed it on his head. Recognizing this as an invitation to exit, Logan turned around and made his way back to the hall, breathing a little easier. He wasn't sure how long the process would take, but at least they'd know where Marie was. He was positive that this was his fault, and he didn't want her to hate him. Though they'd only known each other for a few days, she had grown on him.

The doors to Cerebro closed and Scott, Jean, Logan and Ororo were left alone in the hall. Ororo's scent was unusually overpowering in the suddenly colder hall, and Logan glanced in her direction. She looked terribly worried, and he didn't doubt that she was the source of the drop in temperature. Perhaps she was just worried about Marie taking off by herself.

Logan turned his attention to Jean, curious about something. "Have you ever – " he asked, motioning to the now closed door.

"Used Cerebro?" she clarified. "No. It takes a degree of control and, uh, for someone like me its – " She let her statement hang in the air, trying to find the right word.

"Dangerous," Scott supplied, speaking only to Jean, it seemed. "And I'm not prepared to see your memory erased."

Logan threw Scott a very sharp look, his lip curling up threateningly. Though his eyes were hidden by his glasses, a look of recognition seemed to cross Scott's features, and Logan knew that his comment hadn't been an intended blow. Logan knew that Scott sure as hell wouldn't apologize for it, but knowing that it had been unintentional made it easier for Logan to forgive him.

Logan idly wondered if effects like having memories erased on that machine could be reversed, to gain memories back. It didn't seem logical, but if it could be done, it would probably have to be done by a telepath. Perhaps that was what Xavier intended to do when Logan's forty-eight hours were up.

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner, Logan," Ororo blurted. "I just _knew_ that she was taking time to cool off and I was sure that you knew where she was."

He looked over at her to see her looking very apologetic. Was that what had her so worried? Despite his own worry about the situation, he couldn't find it in his heart to blame Ororo at all. She was the one who'd realized that she was gone in the first place. "It's not your fault," he said calmly. "It was a fair assumption. And she's nearly an adult; we don't have to watch over her like a hawk."

"Or so we thought," Scott muttered.

A quiet, angry growl rose in Logan's throat before he could stop it. He was on edge with worry about Marie, and the fact that Scott didn't seem the least bit worried or even surprised that Marie was gone made Logan want to snap him in half. He'd give Scott one more strike before punching him square in the jaw. It was clear that Scott didn't fear Logan and could probably even handle himself in a fight, but at the end of the day, Logan would eat him alive.

A feather light weight rested on his shoulder and he jerked in surprise. Ororo seemed to have collected herself and now looked much more optimistic. Maybe knowing that Logan didn't blame her for not coming sooner was exactly what she'd needed to hear. "We'll find her. She can't have gone too far on her own, and it looks like the professor is coming out now.

The doors opened and Logan eagerly turned his attention to Xavier. "Well?"

"She's at the train station."

"Where is it?" Logan asked before he could stop himself.

"A few miles west of here."

Logan rolled his eyes and turned to leave. 'A few miles west of here' was hardly helpful, but he'd find the damn station somehow.

"Logan," Xavier said suddenly. "You can't leave the mansion."

Logan stopped and turned back to Xavier. _The hell I can't, _he nearly shouted.

"This is just the opportunity Magneto needs."

"Then he'll probably take it," Logan snapped. "Then again, he might not. You said yourself that you weren't sure that I was the one he was after. And how would he know where to find us unless he's a telepath himself?"

"Storm and Cyclops can find her."

Ororo turned to look at Logan expectantly, as though asking if that were okay with him. "Listen, I'm the reason she took off," Logan said, as much as he hated to admit it.

"We had a deal," Xavier said flatly.

Logan's frown deepened. Oh, well didn't _that _fix everything! Marie was about to get on a train to God knows where because he had nearly killed her and Xavier was worried about their stupid deal? He felt a growl itching to rise up from his throat, but Ororo opened her mouth and silenced that thought completely.

"She's all right," she said, her musical voice thick with reassurance. She turned back to Logan and caught his eyes without struggle. "She's just upset. She'll have her moment of teen angst and then she'll come to her senses."

Though the words were simple to everyone's ears, the look she gave only to him said something else. _This isn't your fault either. _He believed her. In the back of his mind, he _knew_ that he should follow his own instincts and go after Marie, but something in Ororo's voice calmed his overanxious mind. If Logan couldn't leave the mansion to find Marie, then he trusted Ororo to find her and bring her back.

"Storm, Cyclops," Xavier said eagerly. "Find her. See if you can talk to her."

Logan watched Ororo carefully as she nodded and made her way down the hall with Scott. Jean exhaled, sending her less potent gingerbread smell into his lungs in place of Ororo's toxic rainforest. Logan blessed the air and finally tore his eyes away from the sway of her white hair and glared at Xavier.

His head was clear now and he realized that _Cyclops_ had been sent to help find Marie as well. That ridiculous popinjay would take thirty minutes to discuss 'game plans' and a 'course of action.' Meanwhile Marie would probably be halfway to New Mexico…

Logan sighed. He should have raised all hell when they'd told him that he couldn't leave the mansion. But instead he'd let Ororo dazzle him into staying behind while she and Goggles went out to get Marie.

But Logan knew that finding her was only half the battle. Ororo may be a charming woman, but Logan doubted that her charm would be quite as effective on a stubborn teen aged girl. And Scott…

_No._

Logan had no faith in the boy.

He glanced in Jean's direction. Who the hell was going to stop him if he decided to go anyway? He turned to leave, carefully seeking out the scent of oil and gasoline. When it hit his nose, he smirked and as soon as he was out of sight of Xavier and Jean, he broke into a sprint for the garage. Judging by the leisurely pace that Ororo and Scott had been walking, they weren't too worried about Marie actually leaving. Logan was.

He knew that she was leaving because of him, and he was going to get to her before she left and, if nothing else, at least try to make amends before she was gone. He entered the garage and looked around. Plenty of nice cars, but he doubted that the keys were inside. With a school full of teenagers, if they were stupid enough to leave the keys in the car, they were begging the brats to go out joyriding. His eyes swept every corner and stopped on a motorcycle.

It looked nice enough. Fast, powerful and… Logan smirked. The key was in the ignition, and a tag on the key chain read 'Cyclops.'

He hopped on and turned the key. Perfect fit, engine purred like a kitten, tank was full…

_I'm such a dick_, he thought with a wide smile as he steered the bike out of the garage.


	11. Heartfelt Chat

Chapter eleven, for your reading pleasure! Once again, thanks to my devoted reviewers and readers! Enjoy!

* * *

Though Logan was on a very serious mission to bring Marie back to the X-Men mansion, he couldn't help but enjoy himself a little. Scott's bike was a smooth ride, and there was always a feeling of liberation that accompanied Logan whenever he rode a motorcycle.

He rounded corners with precision and practiced ease that he'd always possessed. Long ago he'd come to the conclusion that he must have ridden motorcycles _before_, because he'd always been a good rider.

Looking down for the switch to flip for the headlight, he saw a button with three red arrows. Raising a brow, Logan wondered if he ought to push it. _What's the worst that could happen? It's not like it's a self destruct button or anything…_

He pushed the button and his heart jumped into his throat as the motorcycle accelerated from sixty-five miles per hour to one-hundred and thirty in half a second. Were it not for his super-human reflexes, Logan was sure that he would crash trying to wind around the roads many twists and turns. The harsh wind pulled his already wide smile even wider. He'd get to Marie in time, and this was pretty fun…

-

Standing in the middle of the train station, Logan concentrated hard. If he was going to find Marie, he'd have to momentarily sacrifice the use of his other senses. Not caring about the odd looks that he was probably going to receive, Logan closed his eyes and blocked out the noise around him, focusing all of his power on his sense of smell.

He blocked out the scents of the humans around him in search of Marie's peppermint scent, which wasn't too hard since the humans all seemed to blend together. He picked out a few unique scents – cotton and pineapple were the ones that were most easily identifiable, telling him that at least two other mutants were here – but he wasn't breathing for more than thirty seconds when he picked up the faint scent of peppermint.

His eyes snapped open and he followed his nose, which lead him right past the ticket counter without stopping to pay. "Excuse me, sir, but I'm afraid I can't let you through without a ticket," an irate looking man said.

Logan glared at him, hanging on to Marie's scent. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm bringing someone back."

"All the same sir, you're going to have to purchase a ticket before I'm allowed to – "

Logan let his lip curl up in an animal like snarl slid past his teeth. The young man swallowed hard and stepped aside. Logan passed, eyeing him with a look that he hoped was intense enough to discourage this man from calling security. The last thing that he wanted was to cause unnecessary commotion.

He continued following his nose and it lead him right to Marie, who sat by herself on the train, complete with trench coat with the hood up to discourage socializing of any kind.

"Hey kid," Logan said quietly, sliding into the seat next to hers. He swallowed hard when she didn't look at him, hoping that she wasn't furious with him. Perhaps talking a little before bringing up the subject of the night before would make it a little less awkward. "Where'd you get the money for a ticket?"

It was her turn to swallow hard, still refusing to look at him, though her eyes widened. "I didn't."

Logan snorted and Marie looked at him strangely. "Well, let me give you some free advice; when the ticket guy comes, hide in the bathroom and pretend that your sick for a while."

"You know, believe it or not, I was actually thinking of doing that."

"Small world." He looked around and finally sighed. Beating around the bush would only get him more meaningless conversation like this. "I'm sorry about last night," he said quietly.

She turned to him slowly, but she didn't look angry with him at all. In fact, she looked… ashamed? "Me too."

Logan could only nod. It was his opinion that she had nothing to apologize for. He'd almost killed her, and when faced with death it was natural to used whatever means necessary to save yourself, sometimes at the expense of someone you cared for. But, if she felt that she needed to be sorry in order to make things right from her end, he wouldn't stop her. "You running again?"

"I heard the professor was mad at me," she said quietly, looking away.

Logan frowned. Xavier was a pretty understanding person, and he hadn't seemed the least bit upset when he'd been talking to Logan. "Who told you that?"

"A boy at school."

_A boy at school… _She was going to leave, not because of him, but because some boy had lied and told her that Xavier was mad at her?

"What boy," Logan growled.

"It doesn't matter"

"It does matter. I'll skin him alive. What boy?"

She smiled humorlessly. "I'm sure he was just misinformed."

"My ass," he snorted. "Nevertheless, the professor isn't at all mad at you. Accidents happen, he understands that."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You think I should go back," she said accusingly.

_Yes. _"No," he said carefully. "I think you should follow your instincts."

A pained expression crossed her features. She looked as though she might collapse into a fit of tears at any moment. "The first boy I ever kissed ended up in a coma for three weeks. I can still feel him inside my head." Her voice was hallow, haunted almost. "And it's the same with you."

Logan looked away from her. He understood what she was saying, to a certain extent. Though it didn't necessarily feel like Marie was inside his head, it did feel like she was now a part of him. It didn't really upset him the way it seemed to upset her, but something in the back of his mind told him that she was upset because she felt like she had stolen something from him. He knew that she felt that way about David, though he didn't know how he knew that.

_That must be her talking,_ he thought, shaking his head a little.

Since meeting her only a few days ago, Marie had really grown on him. She was his first true friend, and he felt drawn to her, as though he wanted to protect her. Though she was probably seventeen, in his eyes she seemed like a scared seven-year-old asking for help.

With a bit of a start, he realized that these were paternal feelings. He wanted to shield her from the world, or perhaps give her all of the joy that could be had from the world. That was why he'd been so concerned about her in the bar, and why he hadn't had the heart to leave her on the road. And the fact that they'd nearly killed each other only made him feel closer to her. It was unnerving to think that he could care so much about someone, but it felt kind of nice to care about someone other than himself.

"You know," he said softly, "ever since I woke up fifteen years ago, I've seen these powers of mine as a curse. I've always been the reckless kind because I don't die, I always heal. There have been times when I've even tried to die, but as you can obviously see, they've been failed attempts."

He glanced back and saw that her eyes were closed as though she were in physical pain. "I know," she whispered. "I feel the same."

His frown deepened. This was his fault. Whether this boy had fed her some bullshit lie or not, whatever part of him that had transferred over to Marie was now haunting her. The problem was that, no matter how far she ran, she wouldn't be able to escape it. Not by herself.

"When you touched me last night, for one brief second, I could actually see my death. And right then I realized that I didn't want it anymore. I want to thank you for that." He wrapped his arm around her comfortingly and pulled her close. She leaned heavily on her shoulder, her breathing and heartbeat erratic as she let go of the emotions she seemed to be trying to hide from him. She definitely couldn't do this alone.

"There's not many people that'll understand what you're going through, but I think this guy Xavier's one of them. He seems to genuinely want to help you, and that's a rare thing…" He looked down at her, hoping that she understood that she wasn't alone. "for people like us."

The train creaked and lurched forward, and Marie started, sitting up straight and looking out the window. She turned back to Logan expectantly, waiting to see if he'd let her go that easy or drag her back kicking and screaming.

Logan cleared his throat and looked around briefly, feeling odd in his own skin. He wasn't an emotional person, nor was he the type to comfort people when they were vulnerable. It was quite an experience, but Marie was worth it. If it got her back to Xavier's school, then it was certainly worth the mild discomfort.

"So, what do you say?" he asked, his voice returning to its previous gruffness, though his eyes remained soft for her sake. "Give these geeks one more shot?"

A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips, but she still didn't seem sure. "Come on," Logan whispered, staring straight into her eyes. "I'll take care of you."

The words were out of his mouth before he'd realized exactly what he'd said. But it was too late to take it back, and a big part of him didn't want to take it back. She seemed more settled now and she gave a nod so slight that anyone else would have missed it. "You promise?"

"Yeah." Sure, Jean may be a friend of his, and Ororo's scent was a quiet obsession of his, but he and Marie had been thrown into this together, and somehow it felt right that they stay together.

"Yeah, I promise," he repeated.

She visibly relaxed, and the tension between them all but vanished. Logan smirked. "Now, about this boy…"


	12. Meet Magneto

Logan was weighing the pros and cons of killing a boy named Bobby Drake when the train screeched to a sudden halt. He threw his arm out to prevent Marie from being thrown completely out of her seat, and hoped that she wouldn't panic like the humans. Frightened screams echoed through the train half a second later, and the smell of fear radiating off of them nearly made him choke.

Marie frowned at him and he stood to look around. No one seemed severely hurt, only startled. The lights flickered menacingly and an electric current pulsed in the air, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. Was Ororo in some kind of trouble outside? Various metal objects groaned and bent and thrashed about and Logan ground his teeth. _Son of a bitch…_

The back of the cart rattled violently until it finally bent and peeled open like a banana. Humans screamed and ran towards the front of the cart, but Logan stayed where he was, watching the electrical wires shoot sparks in every direction and wondering if what he was seeing was possible.

A strong copper scent assaulted his nose as a figure floated into view and landed in the cart gracefully. He wore a cape, a metal helmet of some kind, and a wicked smile that could only mean danger. _Magneto._

Glancing at Marie to make sure that she'd stay down, Logan pushed his claws out of his knuckles and took up a defensive stance, paying no heed to the thirty-seven erratic heartbeats that he caused to spike.

"You must be Wolverine," the old man said conversationally, strolling up to him like they were old pals. Logan tried to take a step towards him, but Magneto threw his arm out and Logan became completely immobile. _What the hell?!_

"That remarkable metal doesn't run through your entire body, does it?" He spread his fingers and Logan's body snapped up straight, his arms spread wide and his entire body under Magneto's control. He spread his fingers more and Logan's and bones spread out, slowly pulling all of the muscles in his body apart. "I guess it does after all."

"Cute trick," Logan said through grit teeth. Sweat formed on his brow immediately, but he refused to cry out in pain. The back of his mind registered that he was being lifted off the ground, but the pain was so intense that he didn't care.

"Stop!" Marie screamed hysterically. "Stop it!"

Logan focused. There had to be some way to get his body under control. He had _just_ promised that he'd take care of Marie, and now Magneto was going to drag him away from her for whatever grand plan he had set in motion.

"What the hell do you want with me?" Logan growled.

Magneto raised his eyebrows in honest curiosity. "You?" he chuckled. "My dear boy, who ever said that I wanted you?"

Logan's heart froze as everything clicked into place. Marie had been with him when Sabretooth had attacked him. Marie was with him now, crying on his behalf. Xavier didn't know what Magneto wanted with him because Magneto didn't want Logan at all. With difficulty, Logan turned his head to look at Marie, silently pleading to her to run. But her fearful wide eyed gaze was fixed on Magneto as she slouched down in her seat. Now she knew it too. Magneto was after her.

Magneto closed his hand into a fist and Logan was thrown with deadly force all the way to the front of the cart, his head hitting something so hard that he was out before his feet touched the ground.

-

"Logan?"

He groaned, reaching for the back of his head. His entire skeleton was humming in a very painful way, and the sounds of his pulse mixed with the pulses in the area were much too loud. He probably had another concussion. _Fantastic._

"Logan? Are you okay?"

"He got Marie, didn't he?" Logan grunted.

Ororo sighed, sounding both relieved and frustrated. "Yes, he did."

Logan let out a string of colorful curses before he finally opened his eyes and was met with a somewhat frazzled looking weather witch. Her hair was in disarray, the smell of burnt flesh was clinging to her skin, and it looked like a bruise was forming on her throat.

She reached around and helped him to sit up. He hissed in pain but inhaling her scent numbed the pain a little, or at least gave him something to focus on. "Did he get you too?"

"What? This?" She touched her throat lightly, her jaw clenched. "No. While Magneto is quite powerful, I'm not sure he's the type of person to do something like this."

"But apparently he's the kind to order someone else to do it."

Ororo simply gave him a tight smile and helped him to his feet. "Xavier said that he tried to reason with Magneto, but by the time I led Cyclops out to the car, Magneto and his henchmen were already gone."

"You had to lead him?"

"His visor got knocked off. The professor, Jean, and Scott are waiting for us in the car now. We have to go."

"Scott's bike is still here."

"So is my car. Scott just needs a new visor and Jean's going to drive him and John back here to pick up the bike and my car."

Logan nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose. He really didn't give a damn about the bike, or Ororo's car, whoever the hell John was or how anyone was planning on getting the vehicles back to the mansion. He cared about his bones ringing and he cared about healing himself so that he could find Magneto and snap him in half.

Leaning heavily on Ororo, who didn't seem the least bit affected by the extra weight, Logan closed his eyes against the bright lights and allowed her to lead him to the car. The noise was deafening as well, so he focused on putting one foot in front of the other and the rhythm of her heart beat.

After plenty of walking, he heard a car door open and he waited for Ororo to get in. There was a _very_ good chance that he was going to fall asleep on the way to the mansion, and he'd be damned if he was going to risk falling asleep on Scott. Ororo seemed to understand this and got in without complaint. Logan followed after and closed the door. Jean turned the car on and they were officially on their way back to the mansion. No one spoke, which was just fine with Logan, as the sounds around him were already overly magnified to his sensitive ears.

He breathed deeply, pinpointing Ororo's deep heartbeat and blocking out the sounds of everything else. Focusing on the scent of her skin and her pulse, the pain slowly began to ebb away and he could feel sleep pulling him under. He leaned his head against the hard glass and winced when a bump caused his head to lightly thump against the glass.

Cool hands touched both sides of his face and moved his head to the other side, resting on Ororo's shoulder. As he felt himself slipping into blissful darkness, he heard her musical voice whisper, "I'm softer."


	13. Heated Arguement

My favorite chapter so far! I was so excited that I had to put it up before I left for Arizona! I hope it was worth it! Enjoy, and see everyone in a week!

* * *

A light shake was all it took for Logan's eyes to snap open. The first sight he was met with was Ororo's cleavage, but he was so dazed that his mind didn't really register what he was looking at until it was too late.

She carefully pulled his head off of her shoulder and got out of the car on Scott's side, leaving Logan staring off into space with a confused frown. Ororo ducked her head back into the car with a worried look. "Are you okay, Logan?"

He blinked hard and took a deep breath. He would be. He needed a cold shower, or maybe just a cold splash of water to wake him up. Something that would shock his system a little. He nodded and got out of the car, wondering why he was so groggy. He hadn't hit the wall _that_ hard, and the ride back to the mansion in a car would have been twenty minutes at the most.

The second that fresh air hit him, he was awake, and he growled, slamming the door shut. That damn scent of Ororo's had him sleeping so hard! And it didn't help that her body was soft enough to spend the night on…

He growled again and stormed into the house. He'd wash his face to ensure that he was indeed awake, and then he'd go look for Marie, because it seemed that these incompetents had no idea if they were coming or going. He threw the door to his room open and tossed his jacket on the bed, heading straight for the bathroom. As he washed his face, all he heard were echoes of Marie's terrified screams.

"_STOP IT!"_

She hadn't been concerned for herself. She hadn't screamed for anyone to save her, at least while he'd been awake. She had left the school because of him, and now Magneto had her because of him. But he couldn't blame himself entirely. Yesterday Xavier had said that he wasn't sure that Logan was the one that Magneto wanted, and instead of looking into that theory more, he had only been concerned that Logan honor the deal that they'd made. If Logan had stayed behind then Magneto would have met no resistance in taking Marie, and it was likely that no one would know that she'd been taken.

When the old man's pine scent hit his nose, Logan had to struggle not to viciously snarl at him, though he was sure that Xavier was catching the subliminal messages.

"You said he wanted _me_," Logan barked, throwing on his jean jacket.

"I made a terrible mistake," Xavier said gravely.

Logan growled. "You're damn right!"

"His helmet was somehow designed to block my telepathy. I couldn't see what he was after until it was too late."

Judging by Ororo's defiant stance, she believed Xavier. Logan was a little disappointed that she'd choose to believe him simply because Xavier had been the one to say it. Of all the people capable of independent thought in this place, Logan was sure that she would have been at the top. But perhaps she wasn't following him like a blind sheep. Maybe she didn't even believe him. It could be that she was choosing to stand by his side whether she agreed with him or not, and Logan had to admit that that was loyalty at it's finest. But this was all speculation, and Logan didn't have time for that. Time was not something that Marie had, as far as they knew, and arguing with Xavier was only going to waste time. Grinding his teeth to keep his mouth shut, Logan drifted smoothly across the room and threw on his leather jacket.

"Where are you going?" Ororo demanded.

"I'm going to find her," he snapped back. His eyes caught the bruising on her throat for an instant and he bit back a growl. _And if I happen to see Sabretooth, I'll go ahead and kill him too._

Xavier turned in his chair and gave Logan a skeptical look as he shrugged on his leather jacket. "How?"

Logan snorted. "The traditional way," he growled. "_Look_."

Storming out of the room, Logan made his way to the front door. He heard and smelled Ororo following him, but refused to turn to challenge her.

"Logan, you can't do this alone."

He was not at all in the mood to be under her spell, nor did he give a rat's ass about working as a team. "Why not?" he asked cynically. "Should I wait for good old Xavier and his fanatics – you included – to make everything alright? So far you've _all_ done a bang-up job…"

"Then help us. Fight _with_ us."

Logan turned around and glared at her. "Fight with you?" he sneered. "What, join the team? Be an X-Man? Who the hell do you think you are? You're a _mutant_. The whole world out there is full of people that hate and fear you, and you're wasting your time trying to protect them? I've got better things to do." He turned to leave, but stopped when another thought hit him. "You know, Magneto's right. There's a war coming. You sure you're on the right side?"

Squaring her shoulders, she stared him right in the eye with a small ember of the fire he had seen when she'd pushed him up against the wall the night before. The woman could certainly handle him in a face off. "At least I've chosen a side."

"I'm on _my_ side. That's good enough for me."

"Are you really that selfish?" she snapped, cerulean eyes now fully ablaze. "You really care about no one but yourself?"

"If that were true I wouldn't be on my way out to look for Marie, now, would I?"

She stepped right up to him, close enough to kiss, though she looked like she'd rather kill him. "And do you honestly think that you'll find her faster than we will? You don't know the first thing about Magneto or his plans for her."

"Oh, but Xavier has all of this information, right? Because he can do no wrong…"

"He'll get whatever information is necessary faster than you will," she hissed. "I guarantee it."

Logan snorted and rolled his eyes. He was wasting time. Opening the door, he saw a man who was soaking wet, panting, and seemingly struggling to stay on his feet. Logan inhaled and immediately regretted it, turning his nose up in disgust as a strong swamp smell that this man was radiating hit his nose.

"I'm looking for Dr. Jean Grey," he said breathlessly. It seemed that the words had leeched the last of his strength and he fell forward into Logan, who caught him with a disgusted scowl. _Damn it to **HELL!**_

At Ororo's request – or rather demand, as her look suggested that noncompliance would earn him a lightning strike – Logan helped her carry the man down into the infirmary in the basement.

All Logan could think about was this fiasco distracting from his search for Marie, but Ororo pointed out that there may be some connection between Senator Kelly's disappearance, his condition, and Marie. Logan tried to follow that train of thought, but none of the pieces snapped together for him the way they seemed to for Ororo. And he'd be damned if he was going to ask her to explain her logic, as she still looked like she wanted him to drop dead.

Logan laid him on the table in the medical room and Ororo called Jean and Xavier down to see Senator Kelly. She moved around the room, preparing him for their arrival, and all the while refusing to look at or speak to Logan. She stripped Kelly of unnecessary clothing and hooked him up to various machines with a practiced ease, and when she was done she leaned against a counter and glared at Logan from across the room.

"We're not fanatics, Logan," she finally said.

"No?" he asked calmly. "Then just what are you? Why are you doing all this?"

"Because humanity needs us."

"Oh, _humanity_ needs you?" He knew he'd only flare her temper again, but Logan couldn't help himself. He was frustrated about everything that had gone on since he'd come to this damn school and it seemed to him the Ororo was practically begging for a fight. "How _have_ they lived all this time without you? Oh, wait. I know: slavery, genocide, hate crimes…"

"It's a different world now." He could tell that she was trying not to snap like she had upstairs, but anyone could see that a raging storm was right below the surface. "As a new species, we have a responsibility to protect them, to teach human beings to accept our presence here. Right now they don't know any better. They're afraid."

Logan shook his head, glaring at her. "You see, _this_ is what pisses me off about you hypocrites. You have all these high minded ideals, but you and I both know that you still hate them just as much as they hate you! You talk about humans like they're children waiting for you to punish them for their ignorance, but they aren't ignorant. The same basic situation takes a slightly different form every few decades and humanity falls into chaos every single time. They aren't ignorant; they know damn well what they're doing and they don't give a shit because they've yet to face the consequences. And they may be afraid, but don't act like you aren't equally afraid of them."

The fire had returned to her eyes during his long winded speech, but she said nothing, nor did she try to deny anything he had said about her. "They did hate you, didn't they," he continued, his voice softer. "It's not like I don't understand." He held up his fist and his claws jumped out of his knuckles. He examined them for only a second before retracting them. "What did they do to you? Did they make you angry?"

"What does it matter if I was angry? Or if I'm still angry now?"

"Anger is a basic instinct. It helps us survive."

She stared at him for a long moment before answering. "I've overcome the trials of my past," she snapped, looking away from him.

"Well, good for you."

Jean and the professor entered the medical room together, professional and blissfully unaware of what had just gone on between Logan and Ororo. He could tell that something that he'd said to her had seeped in, but it didn't matter at the moment.

What mattered was finding Marie. Ororo could certainly handle herself. She was a strong woman, and Logan was sure that she'd retaliate when the time was right.


	14. Master Plan

Ah, back from vacation! Never again to Arizona… It was 116 degrees when I go there and the minute I stepped off the plane I saw my death. Anyway, I'm back with chapter 14. I regret that the chapters may not come quite as quickly as they did last week, but I'll do my best. Enjoy!

* * *

Jean marched right to the computer to check Kelly's vitals, whispering her thanks to Ororo. The red head lingered in front of her friend a moment longer than was necessary and glanced quickly at Logan before going back to work.

Even if Jean claimed that her telepathy wasn't as powerful as Xavier's, Logan was sure that Ororo's thoughts were loud enough for Jean to pick up from across the room. He wondered if they were just as loud in Xavier's mind, or if he could tune out that sort of thing when he needed to. Xavier seemed unaffected by any thoughts that might be buzzing around in the air around him, so Logan guessed that it must be the latter.

"Senator Kelly," he said softly, "I'm Professor Charles Xavier."

Kelly, still gasping, turned to look at Xavier. "I'm sorry to be a bother to you, but I was afraid that if I went to a hospital… I thought they would…"

"Treat you like a mutant?" Kelly said nothing, but the look in his eyes suggested that his thoughts had been just that. "We're not what you think," Xavier said kindly. "Not all of us."

Kelly's eyes grew dark with pure rage. "Tell that to the ones who did this to me."

Logan briefly glanced up at Ororo. She was glaring at Logan with the same intense hatred that was in Kelly's eyes, and he knew exactly why she was angry with him; because she knew that they were both thinking the same thing.

Despite the fact that Senator Kelly had somehow been turned into a mutant, he still hated them. Perhaps now there was logic to his dislike of mutants, but there were still plenty of people in the world that hated mutants as much as Kelly did, for no reason other than the fact that they were different. Until recently, Kelly had been counted among those humans. Logan knew it, and now Ororo knew it, and she sure as hell didn't seem happy about it.

She turned to watch what Jean was doing and Logan returned his focus to Xavier, who had wheeled around and perched himself right above the Kelly's head. "Senator, I want you to try to relax," he said calmly, placing his hands on either side of Kelly's head and closing his eyes. "I'm not going to hurt you."

The room was still except for Kelly's heavy breathing and the low hum of machinery. Logan tore his gaze away from Xavier and Kelly again to observe Jean and Ororo. While Jean looked absolutely fascinated with what Xavier was doing, Ororo seemed to be worried about the senator. Logan nearly roared in outrage.

How could she feel anything akin to sympathy after what Kelly had just said about mutants? The former human supremacist was now a mutant himself and he _still_ hated them! Was she really so stubborn in her ways that she couldn't allow herself to feel anger of any kind towards humans just because she thought they didn't know any better? Wild animals don't know any better. People that attack other people for a living, as Senator Kelly did, knew damn well what they were doing.

It briefly occurred to Logan that if he had realized that on his own, a brilliant woman like Ororo would have no problem coming to that conclusion. Keeping that in mind, it also occurred to him that maybe she was well aware, but she was just in denial. That certainly sounded like something she might do.

Logan sighed heavily and turned his attention back to Xavier. The old man's pulse accelerated and his eyes snapped open. Logan, Jean and Ororo all knew before the professor had to say anything; he knew what Magneto was planning.

-

Xavier's office had a rather grim feeling that hung in the air, in Logan's opinion. Xavier, Jean and Scott had been talking for a good fifteen minutes, and it seemed like nothing was really getting done in the way of progress. It was starting to annoy Logan, so much that he found that he had to get up and pace the room to prevent himself from snapping viciously at someone. He wondered if this was because of his worry for Marie, or because he was still on edge from his argument with Ororo. Part of him knew that it was some foul combination of the two, and for the umpteenth time since entering the office, Logan thanked the heavens that Ororo had volunteered to stay and watch over the deteriorating senator while these other fools talked in circles for too damn long.

"The machine emits radiation that triggers mutation in ordinary human beings," Xavier said. Logan rolled his eyes but said nothing. _Yeah, I think we get that._

"What exactly is his mutation?" Scott asked. Again.

"He's extremely adaptable," Jean said, opting for a longer description since Goggles didn't get it the first or second time. "He can effectively change the shape of his body. But the mutation is unnatural and Kelly's body is rejecting it. His cells began to break down almost immediately. He's literally falling apart."

Again, Logan said nothing. He felt like they were reliving the dialog just for the hell of it. Scott frowned thoughtfully, in full leader mode. "What effect does the radiation have on mutants?"

_None, _Logan thought in a huff.

"There appears to be none," Xavier answered. "But I fear it will seriously harm any normal person exposed to it."

Logan sighed – though it sounded a lot like a growl – and leaned against the wall. He wasn't going to get the answers that he wanted unless he spoke up. "So, what does Magneto want with Rogue? Did you get that much?"

Xavier sighed. "I don't know and neither does the senator."

_Well, that's just fan-FUCKING-tastic!_ Logan shouted in his mind, hoping that Xavier caught every word. Though the professor seemed just as frustrated as Logan was, Logan had little pity. They had nearly all of the pieces and were still just as clueless as they had been in the beginning. It made Logan wonder how the hell they expected to outwit Magneto.

"Wait a second," Scott said, an underlying excitement in his tone. "You said this machine draws its power from Magneto, right? And that it weakened him?"

_Now we're getting somewhere…_

"Yes," Xavier said slowly. "In fact, it nearly killed him."

Logan felt the air around him grow cold as they all realized what Xavier was getting at. Magneto was going to use Marie's own power against her. "He's going to transfer his power to Rogue and use her to power his machine."

"Cyclops," Xavier said hurriedly. "You and Storm ready the jet. I'm going to find Rogue. Jean, get Logan a uniform."

Logan froze momentarily while putting on his jacket, but shook off his mild shock. He'd be damned if they were going to put him in one of those jumpsuits, and it seemed that Scott was thinking the same thing.

"Whoa, wait a minute!" Scott stood quickly and tried to hide his initial indignation, but Logan – and everyone else, he was sure – wasn't buying it. "He's not coming with us, is he?"

"Yes," Xavier said shortly.

When he offered no further explanation, Scott continued. "I'm sorry, professor, but he'll endanger the mission and my team."

"Hey, I wasn't the one who gave the train station a new sunroof, pal," Logan snapped defensively.

Though Scott's eyes were hidden behind his glasses, it was clear from the rest of his face that he was livid. "No, you were the one who stabbed Rogue through the chest, _buddy_."

Jean huffed. "Scott…"

The reminder burned Logan's heart, and he barely held back a vicious growl. "I'm not your buddy, dickhead! So, why don't you take your little mission and stick it up your – "

Ororo burst through the door, panting, heart beating wildly and smelling of fear and shock. Her skin was slightly paler than usual, making the bruises on her throat stand out even more "Senator Kelly is dead."

All eyes turned back to Xavier, and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Logan could practically hear him thinking, _Goddamnit!_

"I'm going to find her," the professor repeated. Scott and Logan turned back to each other, ready for another face off. Xavier gave an aggravated sigh. "Settle this pissing contest," he snapped, wheeling towards the door. "People's lives are at stake. Rogue's life is at stake! And make it fast. I want you _all_ ready to leave by the time I get out of Cerebro. That's an order!"


	15. Waiting Around

Jean and Ororo lead the way through the downstairs halls, softly conversing. Scott was in the middle, whispering colorful insults under his breath and Logan brought up the rear, listening hard to the conversing women.

"How exactly did Senator Kelly die?" Jean asked again. Logan was starting to see that both Scott and Jean enjoyed repeating questions and that they took their roles as leader and doctor quite seriously. He certainly hoped that when it came time to act they wouldn't be asking so many questions.

Ororo shivered and shook her head. "He melted. It wasn't a pleasant thing to watch." She had grabbed a towel somewhere along the way and had yet to stop wiping her hands, despite the fact that the second wipe had dried what little liquid there had been to begin with. Anyone could see that she was in shock.

"Can you be more specific?"

"He started morphing. He turned into water. He became a puddle of water. How can that not be specific enough? Do you need to get in my mind and take a picture?"

He heard a low grumble in Jean's chest and raised a brow. "I didn't put you in this mood," Jean hissed quietly. "If you've got a problem with Logan then you'd better deal with it. I'll be damned if I let you take it out on me."

"Yeah, sorry," Ororo grumbled back. Then her heart slowed considerably and everyone froze. Less than one hundred yards in front of them was the door to Cerebro, wide open and giving them a clear view of Professor Xavier, who was curled in a fetal position and shaking violently on the ground.

"Professor!" the three shrieked in unison, sprinting into the room to collect their teacher. Logan's muscles twitched, as though telling him that he was the strongest and should help them. But he couldn't make his brain work properly, and so stayed rooted to the spot as he watched them frantically move around to help Xavier.

Two thoughts circulated through his otherwise frozen mind. First; this was another delay to add to the already long list that had prevented them from going to find Marie. And second; Xavier was supposed to have all the answers, and now he unable to help them. They were more or less back to square one.

Logan was so emotionally spent that he couldn't summon the energy to shout even in his own mind. _Dammit…_

-

The X-Men hovered over their teacher, watching his vitals like hawks for any signs of stabilization. Hanging in the back to allow the three a private moment with their professor, Logan leaned against a counter, far from the group. He felt terribly about the whole situation, and as much as he wanted Xavier to be okay, he still couldn't get Marie out of his mind.

While there was a very good chance that Xavier would pull out of whatever was going on with him, Marie was sure to die if they did nothing. He wanted to leave. He needed to help her – he'd made her a promise – but whenever he made up his mind to walk out the door and keep going, Ororo's words tauntingly echoed in his mind.

"_He'll get whatever information is necessary before you will. I guarantee it."_

Every time he heard it, Logan felt his lip curled up in a silent snarl. He hated to admit it, but she had a point. Despite everything that Logan had learned through the night, he still had no idea where he might find Magneto. He'd be flying blind if he went out and tried to find Marie. Yet, if he stayed here and did nothing, he'd feel like he was abandoning her.

"What can we do now," Ororo asked quietly to no one in particular. Logan allowed himself a quick glance in her direction. She was tired, frustrated, sad, and the look in her eyes suggested that if the answer to her question was negative, she didn't want to hear it. Logan couldn't have agreed more.

Jean checked the monitor for what must have been the hundredth time and gave a frustrated sigh. "We just have to wait."

"Brilliant," Logan growled, pushing himself off of the counter and leaving the room. He couldn't stay here and do absolutely nothing or he'd lose his mind.

Passing Scott on his way to the door, he saw that the leader seemed to be the most shaken by Xavier's condition. He'd said absolutely nothing since the old man had been brought into the medical wing, and hadn't moved an inch since they'd begun watching his vitals. He was paler than usual, and his pulse was very slow, as though he were willing it not to get over-excited. Logan knew better; Scott was afraid.

It wasn't Logan's fault, but felt that he ought to saw something nonetheless. "I'm sorry," Logan said before walking out the door.

He'd never had to deal with so many emotions in all the fifteen years he could remember. His fear for Marie, his anger with Ororo, his frustration with the professor, and his sympathy for Scott… Logan was tired, and it seemed like having a quiet moment alone was now within his reach.

He hadn't made it halfway down the hall before he heard someone following him. _Please be Jean. Please be Jean. Please be Jean…_

"I know you hear me following you, Logan."

_You hate me that much, don't you, God? _He turned to face the white haired beauty but didn't challenge her. He was done fighting with her for the day. "What the hell do you want now?" he asked dully.

She met his lackluster gaze without hostility of any kind, surprisingly. She looked tired and anxious as well, but by no means defeated. "I'm going to scan the news and online reports for any unusual activity that might yield any leads. You seemed to be a little restless, so I was wondering if you wanted to do something productive…"

Logan had stopped listening. He was thankful for the distraction. Much more thankful than he should have been, but he wasn't ready to admit that to Ororo quite yet. "Where?"

"Follow me."

-

She'd led him to a computer room that looked hi-tech enough to be in a spy movie. Though he didn't really know what he was looking for, Logan hopped onto a computer and fell into a pattern of flipping through different live news stations for any abnormalities. Every single channel was broadcasting the U.N. Summit, and Logan doubted that this event would take second place to anything that Magneto was planning.

Logan briefly wondered if the Summit was where Magneto planned to strike, but swiftly dismissed the idea. Xavier, Scott, Jean and Ororo – geniuses that they were – had probably already gone over that idea a hundred times. If there was any threat of that happening then surely Xavier would have seen it coming regardless of Magneto's metal helmet. It was just too obvious.

All in all, about three hours of searching yielded a whole lot of nothing, although he'd hibernated a little and felt much more refreshed. Several times he'd said that he'd call it a night but Ororo's optimism was contagious, and Logan found that he didn't want to give up so easily. She'd completely put aside the ugly exchange of words that they'd had and didn't let it affect how she worked together with Logan. He was happy to contribute in some manner other than simply waiting, as Jean had suggested, and was proud of Ororo for not letting something like their argument get in the way of work. He knew that he wasn't free and clear for some of the things he'd said to her, but right now finding Magneto was everyone's top priority.

But it seemed, at the moment, that only Logan and Ororo cared anything about finding Magneto, as he hadn't seen Jean or Scott since he'd left the medical wing. Admittedly, someone had to watch the professor, but it sure as hell wasn't a two person job. So where the hell was the high-and-mighty Scott Summers?

"Jean? _Jean_?!"

Rapid footfalls bounced off the walls as Scott sprinted by the door. Hysterical cries and pounding on one of the metal doors could be heard soon after.. Logan frowned, frustrated that his concentration had been broken and his system temporarily compromised. "Do I have to go see what he's pissing about before he blows a hole in the wall?"

"Shut up," Ororo said, getting out of her seat and rushing out the door to see what all the commotion was. Not five seconds after her exit, the halls were almost silent. Logan tried to refocus but as soon as he was deep in concentration, Ororo appeared at the door, demanding his attention.

"Jean was able to fix Cerebro," she said swiftly, before Logan could comment. "She used it and Scott thought that the machine might have hurt her. That was all the fuss you heard."

"Charming."

Ororo rolled her eyes. "I know that it's killing you know, but you can relax because she's unharmed, albeit she's got a bit of a headache. The good news is, she knows where Magneto is going. We're going to the briefing room right now."

"Well, isn't that nice for all of you." He was relieved that Jean was alright and certainly ecstatic that they'd finally found out where Magneto was headed, but Scott had been clear. He didn't want Logan along. And now that Xavier was down for the count, he was sure to meet no resistance in his decision.

Ororo crossed her arms and frowned. "Everyone. Now."

"Boy wonder made it abundantly clear that I'm not invited. 'He will endanger the mission and my team,' are the exact words he used, if I'm not mistaken."

"And _I_ made it abundantly clear that we didn't have a snowball's chance in hell without you. We need your help if we want to succeed, and don't think that I take any pleasure in saying that."

"Well, at least someone around here has common sense."

"Yeah, so don't prove me wrong and make me look like an ass. Let's go."

She stared hard at him and Logan couldn't help but put aside all of the anger that he'd built up throughout the night and listen to her. Though he really didn't want to admit it, he knew that if he wanted to rescue Marie then he'd need the X-Men just as much as they'd need him to defeat Magneto. "Alright," he said finally. "If 'everyone' includes me, lead the way."

He followed her around the corner to what she had called the briefing room. Jean and Scott were already waiting for them, standing near a large flat table with controls everywhere. Scott pressed a button and a very detailed holographic image of New York City, Ellis Island and Liberty Island appeared before their eyes. It seemed that they were never in want of the latest technology.

"Jean knows where he's going," Scott began. "Magneto is here; Liberty Island. Now, presumably, his objective is to mutate the world leaders at the U.N. Summit on Ellis Island with his machine."

The hologram shifted to show them a larger scale of Ellis and Liberty Islands. Logan frowned. It took all this bullshitting to figure that out? He shook his head, telling himself that it couldn't be helped now.

"He doesn't know that his machine kills," Ororo put in gravely. "And, judging from what the professor saw, if Magneto gave Rogue enough power…"

"He could wipe out everyone in New York City," Jean finished.

Brief silence met that statement, as it sunk in. "All right," Scott began again. "We can insert here, at the George Washington Bridge, and come around the bank just off of Manhattan, we land on the far side of Liberty Island; here."

The hologram shifted to show his strategy. It seemed like a good plan, but Logan felt rather out of the loop, as they were all old pros and knew all of the ins and outs. He had to say something so that he wouldn't feel entirely useless. "What about harbor patrol?" he tried. "Radar? Do you really think that they'll let us waltz right through?"

Scott gave him a cocky smirk. As much as Logan hated to admit it, it wasn't too different from looking in a mirror. "If they have anything that can pick up our jet, they deserve to catch us."

Logan raised a brow indifferently. Perhaps all this planning jazz wasn't his strength, but when it came time to use muscle, Logan would be the one they'd all turn to. He could live with that. "Good enough for me."

"Ten minutes, everyone."

Everyone moved out of the room, but Scott stopped Logan at the door. "Hold on a second, Logan. Look, despite whatever little tiff you and Storm had a few hours ago, she seems to trust your judgment. I'm going to need a little more than intuition, as I don't quite trust you yet."

"I'd hardly call what happened between Storm and I a tiff."

"We work as a team," Scott continued, ignoring Logan's statement. "Every one of us. Are you going to have a problem taking orders?"

Logan looked Scott up and down. Both men knew that Logan was stronger and faster, yet Scott hadn't once flinched under Logan's threatening gaze. His heart remained calm and steady, and there wasn't the lightest scent of fear radiating off of him. Scott wasn't afraid to lead, and they'd all need that. _Even me, _he grudgingly admitted.

"Give me an order worth following and I don't foresee there being any problems."


	16. Look Alike

Okay, here is chapter 16, for your reading pleasure. I'm closer to the end than I am to the beginning and I'm starting to wonder if I should continue with The Scent of a Storm or if I should break up the stories. I suppose it doesn't really matter in the long run, and leaving it as one extra super long story would probably be easier in the long run, but feedback would be appreciated if any of my devoted readers have a preference. Thanks a bunch!

* * *

Jean had no trouble finding a suit that, strangely, fit Logan like a glove. Being used to wearing loose fitting cotton or denim, the skin tight leather uniform was not Logan's cup of tea at all. He'd struggled to get into it for a few minutes before Jean had finally decided to step in and help him. He expected that she'd poke fun at him sooner or later, so Logan figured that he might as well get a laugh at his own expense too. "So nice of you to help me get this thing on."

She lifted an eyebrow, but he didn't care that she knew that he was playing off his embarrassment. "I'm sure it'll be just as hard to get it off," he continued. "So, later this evening, I guess I'll need help getting out of it. Your suit must be difficult to get out of too…"

She looked him up and down. "I'm sure I saw everything there was to see during your exam," she said with a smirk.

"You don't want a second look?"

"It'd be the fourth look, to be accurate. And I have to say, I wasn't so keen on the second."

Logan frowned. "I'm not that repulsive, am I?"

Jean sighed and gave him a slightly more serious look. "I didn't say that. Don't get me wrong, Logan, you're a…" She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "You're a cool guy and everything, but I'm engaged to Scott, if you haven't noticed. And I think you have noticed. So I have to wonder; do you insist on flirting with me because you love a good challenge or because you like flirting with someone who isn't quite as violent? I can understand you not wanting to be electrocuted…"

Logan frowned, unsure of how he ought to reply to that. He didn't have to be psychic to know exactly who she was referring to. "You, uh… I never… She wants to electrocute me?"

"It crossed her mind," Jean said with a shrug. "She wouldn't, though. I know her. She's just a little annoyed because she's having trouble figuring you out. Her dark side is reserved for wrong-doers."

"I never would have guessed that she had a dark side," he said sarcastically, rubbing his bicep absently. Had he been human or even a mutant without his healing factor, there was a good possibility that she could have bruised him.

Jean laughed and lifted a brow at him. "You don't honestly believe that, do you? Everyone has a dark side, Logan. You should know that."

His mouth twisted in a sour frown. "Yeah, thanks."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do. But, come on. Do _you_ honestly expect me to believe that you have a dark side."

Her smile widened and she stepped in front of him, zipping up his uniform briskly. "Stick around long enough and you might get to see me throw a temper tantrum."

"Epic."

"It will be."

"Can't wait." Logan returned the smirk with a devilish grin of his own.

"We're out," Scott shouted from the hanger. Jean dipped out of the changing room without a backward glance and Logan followed her all the way onto the _Blackbird_. Like the computer room he'd been in only fifteen minutes before, the inside looked like something out of a hi-tech spy movie. He nodded, truly impressed as he settled into the seat behind Ororo.

He tried to ignore the discomfort of the sticky leather uniform he was wearing, but the more he moved, the tighter and hotter it seemed to get. He tried flexing his chest to expand the leather, unzipping and rezipping, twisting and turning, but the discomfort only got worse. He looked around at his temporary teammates, and though he couldn't see the looks on Scott and Ororo's faces, they all seemed perfectly comfortable in their suits. Maybe he just had to break it in?

Or maybe Jean had given him a bad one on purpose at Scott's request. Glancing at Jean and seeing a poorly concealed smile, the idea didn't seem too impossible. "You actually go outside in these things?" he asked no one in particular, glaring at his gloved hands.

Flipping and clicking different buttons and switches to start the jet, Scott boredly said, "Well, what would you prefer? Yellow spandex?"

Unsure of how to respond to that, Logan stayed silent, raising a brow in Jean's direction. She gave him a cute smile, but Logan forgot about it completely when the jet began lifting off of the ground. "Whoa!" He hadn't been in the air in fifteen years, and didn't know if he'd ever been in an aircraft before that. The ride was smooth for the most part, but it only took a few moments for him to realize that he _really_ didn't like being in the air. Still, they were all sure to comment if he expressed his dislike of flying. He'd keep his mind occupied and hopefully they'd be none the wiser by the time they landed.

He popped his claws out of his knuckles and examined them as though he were seeing them for the first time. He remembered back to only a few short days ago when he'd first met Marie in the bar; he'd rubbed his knuckles after his scuffle with the drunken loser and thought that perhaps if he'd used his claws more often then it wouldn't hurt quite as much to push them out. This theory had proved to be somewhat true, as he hardly noticed anymore. Rather than the sensation of being stabbed, he only felt a sharp pinch, like being stuck with a needle.

"Not so good with heights?" Jean whispered, low enough that only Logan could hear.

Logan gave her a sharp look as he retracted his claws. _Can you hear inside my mind or something?_

"Yes and no," she whispered. "Your thoughts are pretty loud right now, and they aren't too complex for me to understand. I can hear your fear – " She cleared her throat when he glared at her. "_Dislike_, and it's centered around the fact that if we were to fall – "

"You don't have to continue that statement," Logan muttered back, feeling his heart accelerate without his permission. He felt foolish for being afraid to fall, but something deep within him truly couldn't help it. At the moment, it didn't matter where this fear came from. All that mattered was that the ride wouldn't last too much longer.

"If it makes you feel any better," she whispered, "Storm's not feeling so hot either. She's a bit claustrophobic."

Frowning, Logan listened hard and found that Ororo's pulse was a bit faster than it usually was. That was odd, but now that he thought back, her pulse had been a little faster in the elevator and in the car. He'd thought that it was just excitement about everything that was going on, but before he had the chance to ask how someone like Ororo could possibly be claustrophobic, Scott spoke up.

"Okay, there's the bridge." Logan let out a breath that he'd been holding in for longer than he could remember. Scott was his favorite person. "I'm taking her down." He lowered the _Blackbird_ to about fifteen feet above the water and Logan felt his bones rattle. He bit his tongue to keep from crying out in alarm but showed no other indication of his inner terror.

"Storm," Scott said smoothly, "some cover please."

"You got it."

Logan watched the back of Ororo's head, and felt her pulse become a little slower, though still faster than normal. Focusing on the sky alone and not on how far above the ground they may be, Logan watched with fascination as a thick cloud of fog grew rapidly, hiding the jet from sight in a matter of seconds. They also couldn't see a damn thing in front of them, and Logan gripped the armrest until his knuckles where white. Scott hit a few buttons and soon they could see as clear as day through some kind of infrared visor over the windshield.

Logan relaxed fractionally. "Amazing stuff," he said appreciatively, careful to keep the tension from his voice.

"Highly advanced version of infrared night vision," Ororo said proudly, though her voice excitement sounded a bit forced. "I programmed it myself. Makes darkness a thing of the past."

Logan simply nodded, despite her inability to see it. After hearing the stress in her voice, he was determined to keep his fear under control. It was bad enough that Jean knew and she would probably gossip about it with Ororo later…

"I'm tempted to," Jean said out loud, though no one but Logan noticed. Or maybe they did but refused to show it. Hell, if Ororo was feeling stressed as well they could be talking to each other too. It seemed to Logan that Jean had been very modest in saying that she wasn't as powerful as Xavier.

They reached their destination without hiccup and Scott roughly landed the aircraft, causing Logan's heart to stop. He tasted blood in his mouth from nearly biting his tongue in half and he'd gripped the armrests so tightly that they'd been crushed beneath his fingers. Jean gave him a reassuring look, but it still took Logan a moment to recover.

"Sorry," Scott said flatly.

Logan glared at the back of Scott's head. The former favoritism he'd felt for the pilot was gone completely. "You call that a landing? You could warn a guy before you make a move like that."

Scott smirked and looked back at Logan. "Not a good flyer, huh?" he taunted.

"I can't remember," Logan sneered back as he unstrapped himself, desperate to get out of the jet.

Shaking his head, Scott opened the overhead hatch and climbed out of the jet with Logan close behind. He leaped the long distance to solid ground and refused to look at the faces of the three others as they climbed out of the jet calmly. Scott and Jean's muffled snickers were enough to make him want to throw something heavy at them, but Ororo's small sigh of relief made him feel better about his own irrational fear.

Scott quickly secured the jet to the base of the island using special cords and led the way up to the platform that the Statue of Liberty rested on. The fog was still thick and the air was biting cold, but Ororo didn't seem to mind and Scott and Jean were hiding their shivers well. In the back of his mind, Logan wondered if the fog would turn out to be more conspicuous than the _Blackbird_ alone would have been, but it didn't entirely matter. Magneto had been a step ahead of them thus far, so surely he knew to expect them any minute now.

They stopped at the base of the statue and looked up. Logan's sharp eyes caught what didn't belong; an object that looked like a grenade underneath Lady Liberty's torch. Ororo, Jean, and Scott seemed to have followed his gaze.

"Well, look at that," Jean said softly.

"Clever," Ororo agreed. "The base of the torch."

"It looks like we'll have to go up through the inside of the building if we want to get to that machine," Scott proclaimed.

Logan rolled his eyes. _No shit, Sherlock,_ was his first thought, but Scott was the leader, and Logan had more or less promised to behave while on this mission. At the moment, it wasn't really worth it to comment, especially when his traitorous heart skipped a beat at the thought of falling from such a height.

_But it'll be okay, _he thought as he followed the X-Men into the building. _I won't fall. I'll be in the air, this time. I'll be in a solid building on solid ground, not in the air with a half ass pilot who likes to crash land the aircraft in the water!_

He walked through the metal detector and was so deep in thought that he didn't even start when it wailed loudly at him. The other's however, turned back to him with worried expressions. Unable to think of any other solution, Logan popped his claws out of his hand and stabbed the alarm, squinting as the sparks flew at his face. Scott frowned at him, as though to suggest that Logan was already endangering the mission. In response, Logan gave Scott the middle claw.

Scott smirked back and nodded appreciatively at Logan's creativity, while Jean rolled her eyes and Ororo just stared at him. Logan retracted his middle claw and exhaled. Women didn't understand good humor…

They continued, but Logan began to feel ill at ease in a matter of seconds. Now that his mind was clear, he got the distinct feeling that someone was watching them or knew where they were. How else would they have gotten this far without incident? Perhaps Magneto had expected them to arrive sooner or later, which meant that one of the many henchmen that he'd heard about had to be nearby. Focusing on the scents around him, Logan inhaled deeply. Dust, Windex, Jean's gingerbread, Scott's burning wood, floor cleaner, Ororo's rainforest – Logan allowed himself to linger on that scent a moment longer than necessary before returning to the task at hand – and then he caught it. The scent that didn't belong, the scent of a mutant; blueberry.

"There's someone here."

"Where?" Scott asked.

"I don't know." Despite the seriousness of the situation, Logan couldn't resist. "Keep your eye open."

He walked ahead, ignoring the annoyed, "Logan," that followed him around the corner. He was sure that someone was here watching them. It'd be much easier to find out where if Ororo's scent wasn't so overpowering, but Logan was at least grateful that it wasn't as powerful as it had been when they'd first met. Were that the case, all Logan would have to rely on was his hunch that he was being watched, and he knew that that much wouldn't convince Scott. Rounding the corner, Logan inhaled the fresh air that Ororo had yet to taint and pushed his already heightened senses to pick up any and everything in the room.

Scott whispered "Damn it."

Jean's hair brushed across the leather of her uniform.

Ororo's cape rustled as she shifted her stance.

All of them had steady breathing and pulses, and then he found it. A pulse that was a little faster than the others. Perhaps excited by the hunt? _Big mistake_, Logan thought as he tried to pinpoint its location. Wherever it was, it was nearby. _Very_ nearby.

"Anything?" Scott asked.

Before he could hush Scott, he heard his own voice answer the leader. "I know there's someone here. I just can't _see_ them."

_Bingo._ Logan sprinted the short distance to the X-Men and saw who it was that had spoken. It was him, or rather someone that looked and sounded like him. But, getting closer, he smelled the familiar blueberry scent on the imposter. He reached his double just in time to push him out of reach of Scott, who'd nearly been stabbed in the back. Logan tackled him and they rolled a good ten feet before the other slammed Logan into a brick wall in a side room, blowing him a kiss with a wicked grin.

Logan shoved him back just far enough to get his leg up and kick the imitator back. His claws jumped out of his knuckles and the other copied his threatening stance.

Scott looked between them, unsure of who to shoot. Logan threw out his arm, shouting, "Wait!" The imposter did and said the same thing at exactly the same time before cutting a rope of some kind, sealing the two of them away from Scott, Jean and Ororo. It was one on one now. Logan braced himself.


	17. Blue Beauty

"Damn, damn, damn," Logan said, chasing after his double. After the door had sealed the two away from the other X-Men, the look alike had sliced at some electrical wires, killing the lights. A feminine, high pitched peel of laughter tore from its throat as it ran away, with Logan in pursuit.

Any other time, he might have found such a fight exciting. It was dangerous, fun, and it was a woman, if the laugh was any indication. But the gravity of the situation made it quite a bit less enjoyable, and Logan already knew that this mutant – whatever it was – wouldn't go down easily.

In a blur of movement, the mutant slammed him against a steel wall and pinned him to it with amazing strength. He tried to head butt his double, but it bent its entire body at an impossible angle and Logan's head somehow collided with its boot. It laughed again, this time in his voice, and let Logan go, backing away and doing a back flip. His double kicked him in the face again and Logan felt his skull vibrate painfully.

The mutant landed gracefully and jumped right back into the air, morphing into a woman – slicked back red hair, blue skin, yellow eyes and a devilish grin – as she delivered a roundhouse kick right to Logan's chin. Another graceful landing put her a few feet away from him, just out of reach, but close enough for him to catch her licking her blue lips seductively.

_She must think this is foreplay, _Logan thought, his lip curling up in disgust. He charged at her and she caught his wrists in a flash. She leaned back, kicking him in the face with a bare foot and his head jerked back painfully. Before he could fully recover, she had maneuvered herself behind him by jumping over his right arm and he heard a sickly cracking of what could only be his spine.

He growled in pain and tried to stand up straight but felt a hard kick in his groin, which successfully hunched him over in pain. Logan backed away, and found himself in a corner, staring at the blue woman who still looked like she was having the time of her life. He let out a frustrated snarl and she grabbed a pile of nearby chains that were draped on a pipe. She tried to strike his face with them, but he brought his fist up and the thick chain links easily tangled in his claws. He tangled his other claws in the chain and jerked her closer, trying to throw her across the room.

She simply let go of the chains and did another somersault, landing out of reach on top of a wooden crate and bowing like a performer accepting applause from an enthusiastic audience. She didn't sport a single bead of sweat, as far as Logan could tell. Her heartbeat was faster than was normal, but it was fairly steady considering all of the exercise she'd just done, and she wasn't breathing heavily. Logan, on the other hand, was sweating profusely, panting heavily, his suit was sticking to him like adhesive, his temperature was only rising with his rage, and he was becoming so enraged that he was beginning to see red. He closed his eyes to catch his breath for half a second and when he opened them she was gone. "Oh, for _fuck's _sake!"

With a groan he stood up straight and caught his breath, taking advantage of the short break. She couldn't have gone far, and he hoped that she was having too much fun to abandon him. He sniffed the air but could smell nothing but his own sweat. "Dammit."

He'd have to backtrack and find a way out so that he could get some air and cool down before he overheated in this damn suit. He made a mental note to tell Jean that he needed a suit that breathed. Whatever the hell he was wearing at the moment just wasn't practical.

Taking one last breath, he wandered down the endless halls until he finally found his way out of the dark passages and into a display room. He stood perfectly still, breathing in the air around him. He was cooling down and relaxing his temper while he waited for any sign of her. She knew where he was, and he was sure that she'd soon grow impatient of waiting for him to make a move.

And the moment he completed that thought, he heard the rustle of a cape against leather. "Logan?" Ororo said, moving closer. "Is that you?"

Logan inhaled quietly. With his back turned to her, she couldn't see the smirk on his face. _Bingo_. He held his arm out, as though he were trying to concentrate. "Shhh." He heard her continue to advance, but remained still. As long as she thought that he was unaware, he had the upper hand. "The other one ain't far away."

"Come on. We have to regroup."

Very convincing, but Logan inhaled one more time to be sure. Blueberry, not rainforest. This wasn't his Ororo.

"I know, but there's a problem." Fast as he could, Logan popped his claws out of his fist and turned around, stabbing the Ororo imitator right in the stomach. A shocked and pained expression crossed her features. Blue eyes clouded over with white and even though Logan was positive that this wasn't Ororo, this expression of pain and terror was so real that he knew it'd be burned in his mind for a long time. Her shocked expression nearly mirrored Marie's when he'd stabbed her, but Logan showed no pity. "You're not a part of the group."

He pulled his claws out and smirked with satisfaction as claws sprang out of the fake Ororo's hands and white eyes became yellow. Groaning and gurgling, she slowly morphed back into her blue form and fell to the ground with tragic grace. Her heart was still beating, but it had slowed considerably.

"Nine try, but no two women smell alike," Logan muttered, stalking off in search of the other X-Men. _And I'll be damned if anyone can replicate _her_ scent._

He retraced his steps to where he'd first separated with them and pulled the heavy door open with very little effort. Logan heard and smelled Scott and Jean around the corner, but didn't smell Ororo. Slightly worried after what he'd just done to the shape shifter, he approached them without hesitation.

Scott's heartbeat skyrocketed and his hand flew to the switch on his visor, ready to blast him. Knowing that Scott's eyes could punch a hole through a mountain, Logan threw his hands up submissively. "Hey, hey! It's me."

Scott tensed, not convinced. "Prove it."

Logan sighed. What could he say that would make Scott believe that he wasn't the impostor? "You're a dick."

Scott's pulse relaxed and even Jean gave a slight nod, though she rolled her eyes. "Okay," Scott said, lowering his hand. "Now we just need to find Storm."

"Right here."

Logan looked up and swallowed a protective growl that was itching in his throat. Her hair was sticking out in every direction, bruises were forming all over her face, and she had a few shallow cuts that were beginning to bleed. She looked as worn as Logan felt, but she sounded satisfied. Her scent drifted into his lungs and he allowed himself a satisfied smirk. _That's more like it._

"You all right?" Jean asked.

"Better than Toad," Ororo replied with a triumphant smile.

"Much better looking, too," Logan said before he could stop himself.

Ororo flipped her hair out of her eyes and offered him a weak smile. "You sure know how to make a beat-up woman feel better."

"I endeavor to please, babe."

"Okay then," Scott said, cutting them off. "Storm took care of Toad. I'm assuming that you took care of Mystique, Logan."

"You know what happens when you assume."

"I'll take that as a yes," he said pointedly. "Two down, and two to go."

"And why do I get the feeling that the next two are going to be the hardest?" Logan grumbled.

Ororo snorted in much the same way Logan would have. "Because you're right."


	18. Magneto's Trap

Once again, thank you to all of my encouraging reviewers that push me to write more. I'm working on the rough draft of part two even now. Part two may just end up being rolled into this story... still don't know yet... But rest assured, I'll be working on X2, X3, everything in between and maybe even beyond! Until then, enjoy!

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Logan trailed behind Jean and Scott up the stairs, moving slowly. He wasn't exactly sore from his scuffle with Mystique, but he was a little tired. At the moment, however, he wondered if it was the exercise or the fact that the damn suit was overheating him. Despite the short break he'd gotten, he was still hot and sticky under the leather uniform.

When they finally reached Ororo, Logan was dripping sweat and glaring hatefully at his teammates, who all seemed to be perfectly comfortable. The weather witch smirked in response. "Hold still for a second," she said quietly.

Logan obeyed without question as she disappeared behind him. He felt his heart skip as cool hands lightly brushed his neck, peeling his collar away. She breathed down his neck and arctic wind traveled down his spine, all through his suit to the bottom of his feet. It was such a relief, such a pleasant shock to his system that he closed his eyes and a loud moan rumbled in his chest.

He lazily opened his eyes and Ororo stepped away with a smug smirk. "Do you need a smoke," she asked.

"Do you have one?"

"Yes. I happen to carry them on my person when I go on all my missions," she said, rolling her eyes. She then muttered, "I should still be mad at you."

"But that – whatever you just did – that was better than make up sex."

"There was little effort on my part." She gave him a wicked smile. "So I guess it was about the same."

"now that's not a fair assumption." He cocked a brow and grabbed her gloved hand, pulling her closer. He stared straight into her cerulean eyes with a mischievous smirk and the intention of saying something seductive. But he was rudely interrupted. "Can we _focus_, please," Scott snapped.

Logan scowled at the back of Scott's head as Ororo stepped away and followed the other X-Men up more stairs. "Cockblocker," he muttered, following after her. "Heroes always get to kiss a pretty girl in the movies right about now."

"You sure as hell didn't need Scott's help," she said with a laugh. "You'd be lucky to get a hug from me. And I'm pretty sure that you're not _my_ hero, because I kicked Toad's ass all on my own, thank you very much. And lastly, I'm not a 'pretty girl.' I'm a grown woman and I'm flippin' gorgeous."

"Can't argue with that."

Jean turned around and glared at both of them. "I swear! You two are like the kids in the back of the class that won't stop passing notes!"

"Don't encourage them, Jean," Scott said flatly as they finally made it to the top. From the look of it, they were inside the head of the Statue of Liberty. A hole had been punched through the top, giving them a view of the base of the torch. Logan tried to cock his head to the side, but found that he couldn't. Panicking, he inhaled sharply and a strong, familiar copper smell hit his nose. His pulse all but stopped. They had walked right into a trap.

"Everybody, get out of here," he warned.

"What is it," Ororo asked, her tone laced with worry.

"I can't move." He felt himself lift off the ground turn around before he was flung across the room and flattened against the wall. Various scraps of metal that held Lady Liberty together from the inside began flying around, and one by one the X-Men were pushed and pulled and flattened against the wall, held immobile by the scraps.

Scott and Jean were bound facing each other and unable to turn their heads away from each other. Ororo was bound to the wall a short distance away, her hands and throat tightly wrapped. Logan felt a familiar magnetic pulse that made his hairs stand on end as Magneto floated down through the hole in the ceiling with a victorious smirk.

"Ah! My brothers, welcome." He turned to Logan, who was still unbound although quite unable to move. "And you… let's point those claws of yours in a safer direction."

The metal belts around him groaned under Magneto's influence, and Logan tried to fight his power, using his muscle in an attempt to flex back. It didn't work for long. Magneto soon had Logan's fists pointed directly into his chest. The metal straps held him firmly in place and he swore under his breath. If he tried to extend his claws, he'd stab himself right in the chest. Logan glared at Magneto. _Dammit._

Logan caught the strong smell of wet dog as Sabretooth – the one who had kicked his ass and destroyed his camper only days ago – hopped in, his eyes sweeping the area. Logan also remembered that he'd been the one to bruise Ororo's beautiful throat, and glanced in her direction. She was glaring murderously at Sabretooth. Though she'd never looked so terrifying and powerful, the protective growl he'd been holding in finally slid past his teeth.

"You'd better close your eyes," Magneto warned, now addressing Scott. Sabretooth lumbered over to Scott and roughly removed the visor, tossing it into one of his many coat pockets. Logan's heart stopped, as did Scott's, but it resumed a rapid pulse as Sabretooth moved aside and Logan saw Scott's eyes firmly shut. Jean would be safe as long as Scott kept his eyes shut, and no one cared more for Jean's safety than Scott.

"Storm," Scott said, his voice revealing none of the fear that his heart and scent betrayed. "Fry him."

Logan resisted the urge to snort. "Oh, yes," Magneto agreed, as though he'd read Logan's mind. "By all means. A bolt of lightning into a huge copper conductor…" Magneto made his way over to Scott and Jean, shaking his head condescendingly. "I thought you lived at a school."

He chuckled darkly and moved away, holding his earpiece. "Mystique." Logan knew for a fact that he'd receive no reply, and he smirked. "Mystique."

"I've seen Senator Kelly," Jean blurted.

Magneto abandoned his earpiece and turned to Jean, clearly curious, if only a little. "So the good senator survived his fall? And the swim to shore?" He walked back to stand in front of Scott and Jean. "He's become even more powerful than I could have imagined."

"He's dead," Jean said flatly.

"I saw him die," Ororo put in. Magneto turned his attention to her and advanced. Logan felt his own pulse become suddenly erratic, and it wouldn't stop for anything. Sabretooth glanced at him, then back at Magneto and Ororo, his lip curling up in a disgusting smile that made Logan want to snarl. _Dammit!_ It made sense that such an animalistic mutant would have heightened senses like he did.

"His cells fell apart," Ororo continued, her voice steady despite her pulse. "His body rejected the mutation and he melted. Senator Kelly died, like those people down there will die if you do this."

Magneto leaned closer to Ororo, speaking softly. Logan's heartbeat rose higher still and Sabretooth's grin only widened. "Are you really so sure of what you saw?"

"I saw enough to know that innocent lives are at stake."

"Why do none of you understand what I'm trying to do?" he asked, sounding exasperated. "Those people down there, they control our fate and the fate of every other mutant." He backed away from her and resumed his spot at the center of the room, making a show of looking at each of the X-Men. "Well, soon our fate will be theirs."

"Your machine doesn't work, Magneto!" Ororo cried. "You're going to kill thousands of people! That _thing_ is going to wipe out all of New York City!"

"I'm doing this for you. I'm doing this to put an end to the persecution of my people."

"Bullshit!" Everyone – except Scott – turned and looked at Logan, whose blood was boiling. Magneto glared at Logan but he didn't flinch under the old man's piercing stare.

"Help!" a desperate voice screamed. "Please help me!" Logan's heart quickened again. It was Marie! "Please, help…"

"You're so full of shit!" Logan snarled again. "One of your people is about to get fried in your machine that doesn't even work. You don't think she's feeling a little persecuted right about now? If you were really so righteous, you'd be the one strapped to that thing." He waited for Magneto to say something. Anything, but it almost seemed like he was considering the right response.

"Help! Somebody help me!"

Unmoved by Marie's screams, Magneto continued to stare at Logan. "And who would lead them then? Charles? Cyclops? Maybe _you?_" He turned around and faced Ororo again. "This is not the time for politics and debate. It's a time for strength. Our people will need leadership and none of you are cut out to lead."

"And you are?" Logan snapped, bringing Magneto's focus back to him. "You're trying to pull mutants to the top by wiping out humans. If I'm remembering my history right, that sounds a lot like the final solution, wouldn't you say?" Magneto's lip curled up as he rose into the air and out of view. Logan had certainly given him something to think about, but that sure as hell wasn't going to save Marie.

"Please! Anyone! Somebody _please_ help!" Logan could hear the desperation and defeat in her voice and growled. She was in trouble. He had to help her. He'd made her a promise that he had no intention of breaking. Sabretooth was staring right at Logan, whose pulse had skyrocketed. Sweat began forming on his forehead from anticipation. _Fuck. This is going to hurt…_

Logan let out a roar and pushed his claws out hard. He felt them slice right through him and he gasped in pain as his lungs filled with blood. He felt the copper belts loosen and the claws retracted as he fell. Jean screamed his name and as he fought the blackness trying to consume him, he heard a whisper that prevented him from slipping under.

"No!"

Logan heard Ororo's plea so clearly that it felt as though she'd said it right in his ear. He focused hard on healing himself as he listened to Sabretooth lumber towards him. He heard the distinct clink of his dog tag around Sabretooth's neck. He kept still despite his anger, vowing to get his dog tag back if he had to kill him for it. Sabretooth grabbed the back of his collar and lifted Logan like a rag doll. Logan's eyes snapped open and he pushed his claws out, stabbing Sabretooth in much the same way he had stabbed Mystique. He roared in pain and Logan smirked. "Glad to see me, eh?"

Sabretooth pulled Logan's fist away from his abdomen. With frightening ease, the beast lifted him off the ground and threw outside through the hole in the roof. Logan fumbled for a second before realizing that he'd fall to his death if he didn't grab something. His heart pounding wildly, Logan grasped desperately at anything until he caught a spike of the statue's crown and held on rigidly as he glanced down.

Sabretooth grabbed his ankle and dragged him away from the edge before Logan could faint. He was so thankful for being pulled away from his potential death that he waited until they were near the center before twisting around and kicking Sabretooth in the face, sending him staggering back a few steps. Angered, the beast grabbed Logan as he tried to get to his feet and threw him a short distance to the top of the statues head. Trying to copy one of Mystique's somersaults, Logan rolled and landed on his feet, pushing his claws out of his knuckles in full fighting stance, ready for Sabretooth.


	19. Face Off

Ugh! _Finally!_ I've been trying to post this chapter since Friday! Sorry for the delay, and please enjoy!

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Fighting Sabretooth wasn't at all the same as fighting Mystique. While Logan had had to rely on speed to try to hit Mystique at all, now Logan had to rely on speed to avoid being hit by Sabretooth. And strength didn't seem to be a factor at all. While Logan manages to get in a few solid punches, Sabretooth didn't seem to feel his blows. They just annoyed him.

Logan might have been more focused if they'd been fighting inside, but the back of his mind kept reminding him that a few short feet away was a hundred foot drop. As a result, his steps were more careful to prevent slipping, his hits were more controled to avoid falling over and he was unable to focus on simply kicking Sabretooth's ass.

He lunged for Sabretooth, but the animal sidestepped and punched Logan hard, sending him into a back flip and landing roughly on the surface. Logan jumped to his feet and was able to stab him again, but Sabretooth only roared angrily and hit Logan again, sending him back.

Logan managed to kick him in the gut, bending him over to catch his breath. A flash of metal caught Logan's eye and he growled. "This is mine," he growled, using his claws to rip his dog tag from Sabretooth's throat. At the same time, he picked Scott's visor out of Sabretooth's pocket and shoved it up his sleeve.

The mutant grabbed Logan's throat and lifted him off the ground. Logan sputtered, trying to breath despite his windpipe being crushed. His heart began to pump out of control as Sabretooth lifted him over his head and threw him.

Logan cried out in terror, afraid that he wouldn't meet any resistance on his way over the edge. He reached out and thanked the Lord when his claws caught on one of the spikes of the crown. He flew all the way around and somehow managed to land upright and still in a fighting stance on the spike. It was a cool trick, but something he never wanted to do again.

Growling viciously, he pointed both of his claws at Sabretooth and lunged at him. Both of his claws went right into the beast's chest as he tackled the bigger mutant, and Sabretooth roared in anger and pain. Logan quickly scrambled up and was about to deliver the killing blow when a scream stopped his heart. Marie's scream.

Sabretooth took full advantage and threw Logan over the edge again, and Logan cried out again when he looked below him and saw that there was nothing he could grab on to. His heart pounding erratically, Logan drove his fist into the copper dome to halt his descent and howled in pain as he felt his shoulder dislocate. He was about to drive his other fist into the dome, but he felt a pulse spike beneath him and cursed. Someone was on the other side, and he could have impaled them.

Logan glanced down again but quickly focused on looking up, ignoring his hammering heart. He grit his teeth and slowly making his way back to the top with as little puncturing as possible. When he finally made it to the top, he lay flat on his back, breathing heavily and sweating, trying to still his wild heart. Luckily, his fear of falling had made it possible for him to crawl to the top with a dislocated shoulder, though now it was painful enough to make him see stars.

He roughly twisted his arm and popped the ball back into the socket, biting his tongue to keep from crying out. He lay still a while longer, making sure he was fully healed before attempting to confront Sabretooth again. A loud growl hit his ears and he carefully crawled to the edge of the hole, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.

He listened harder and heard Ororo's heavy breathing. He resisted the urge to jump in and try to cut Sabretooth in half, as that had gotten him nowhere the last time.

"You own me a scream," Sabretooth said quietly, and a pulse beat wildly out of control. He could only assume that it was Ororo's.

_I'll cut him in half!_ Logan jumped down through the hole and slowly rose to his feet with Scott's visor in hand. He pointed his claws at Sabretooth, baring his teeth. "Hey, bub? I'm not finished with you yet."

Sabretooth smirked but both of them looked away as a bright light caught their attention. The torch above them shattered to reveal a machine that was spinning around Marie. Though it was clear that she was still screaming, the roar of the machine made it impossible to hear.

Logan turned his attention back to Sabretooth. "Jean? You see anything interesting?"

Jean's hurried whispers satisfied Logan. She knew what he wanted her to do. "Scott, when I tell you, open your eyes."

"No," he whispered back, smelling of fear. "I could kill you."

"Trust me!"

Logan knew Scott would do it. He may not trust Logan very much, but Scott sure as hell trusted Jean. "Look what I found," Logan sneered, turning his attention back to Sabretooth. He held up the visor and let his hand drop the moment it became weightless. It was up to Jean now. The visor flew towards them and Jean whispered shakily, "Now!"

Scott opened his eyes and the room light up as a red beam of pure energy hit Sabretooth square in the chest and knocked him through the copper wall to fall to his death. Scott closed his eyes quickly and Logan rushed to cut everyone out of the copper belts that were holding them to the wall.

Through his visor, Scott looked down at Logan. "Thanks," he said sincerely.

"Don't mention it," he returned, moving on to Ororo. "You okay," he asked without looking at her.

She tilted his head up and caught his eyes. In them, he saw that she understood all that he was asking in those two words. Had Sabretooth hurt her further? Had she recovered from watching Logan stab himself? And so many other questions that Logan didn't even know that he was asking. But her eyes were calm, and Logan was able to relax even before she answered, "I'm fine."

Logan gave Ororo a curt nod and returned to the present, satisfied that she was unharmed. Though dragging Sabretooth out of the water and killing him a second time would be a waste in the long run, Logan would have done it for the white haired beauty.

"We need to get Rogue out of there," Logan said, looking up at the machine that she was strapped to. "Cyclops, can you hit it?"

Scott grabbed the switch on his visor and aimed. "The rings are moving too fast."

"Just shoot it!" Logan barked.

"I'll kill her," Scott snapped back. He turned to Ororo, back in leader mode. "Storm, can you get me up there?"

"I can't control the wind like that. You could fly right over the torch."

"Then let me go," Logan said before he could stop himself. Scott gave him a look of incredulity. "If I don't make it…" he stopped himself for half a second and steadied his pulse as best he could when the thought of falling _again _entered his mind. "Then at least you can still blast the damn thing." Scott stared at him, possibly weighing the options. "If you have any better ideas, now would be the time," he added.

Scott nodded and turned to Ororo. "All right. Do it, but Jean, use your power too. Try to steady him."

Logan braced himself as he felt the wind begin to pick up. "Hold on to something," Ororo warned.

Logan felt the pressure of the wind around him as Ororo tried to focus on him. His heart jumped into his throat the instant his feet left the ground and he turned to Jean, not caring if he looked panicked. She gave him a determined look, one that said '_I won't let you fall._'

And Logan believed her.

He rose higher into the air, and panicked when he began flipping in midair. It didn't feel like Jean was controlling his movements at all! He floated towards the machine and clung to it with a vice grip, lowering his body until the wind died down and he was no longer under their control. He shoved down the terror at how high up he was as he stood and hopped down to the platform. His claws jumped out of his fist and he tried to slice through the spinning machine, but was halted by Magneto. The old mutant was reaching up for Logan, clearly weak but still strong enough to hold him back.

He cursed as Magneto struggled to move his claws away from the machine. He looked helplessly at Marie, who was whimpering as a streak of her hair turned as white as Ororo's. The machine was killing her, but there was still time to save her if only he could resist Magneto.

But Magneto was still the more powerful mutant. He pushed harder against Magneto's power and managed to hit only the tips of his claws on the machine. Not nearly enough to break it. The light hurt his eyes terribly, the noise was deafening, and Marie's screams were growing more terrified every second.

_Now would be a good time, Scott_, Logan thought, ignoring the pain as Magneto tried to pry his claws apart from his body. The next second, a red beam shot up and hit Magneto's back, knocking the old man over and releasing his hold on Logan. Logan drove his fist forward and the machine came apart easily, flying out in every direction and crashing into the water. The white light that had surrounded them disappeared as though it had never been there.

Logan gave a sigh of relief and turned to Marie with a smile that vanished the instant he saw her. "Oh, God, no," he whispered, cutting the bonds that held her to the machine. He held her close, breathing heavily. Her pulse was barely a flutter, and it got weaker with every second that passed.

He touched the lock of white hair. "Come on," he whispered, gently shaking her. She was unconscious, but maybe touching her would work. He hadn't come this far and fought so hard only to fail. She didn't deserve to die like this. He used his teeth to pull his glove off and tossed it carelessly aside. His hand hovered over her face for half a second before he touched her.

Her skin was feverishly hot, but nothing happened. He didn't feel a surge of power, he didn't hear her heart begin to pound rapidly as she stole his power and healed herself, and she didn't open her eyes. He was too late. He bit his lip and tears filled his eyes.

He'd said he would take care of her. He'd promised that he would protect her, and now she was dead because of he hadn't been fast enough. Everything that had led up to this moment was his fault. If he hadn't stabbed her, she wouldn't have run. If she hadn't run, Magneto wouldn't have gotten her. If Magneto hadn't gotten her, he would have used someone else. He hugged her close, breathing in her scent. Since she'd taken Magneto's power, she smelled of peppermint and copper, and both scents were fading as fast as her pulse.

An odd tingling all over his body made his eyes snap open and he began to feel the familiar shock run up and down his spine. He gasped in pain as he felt each and every one of the cuts and bruises that he'd received from both Mystique and Sabretooth open and begin to bleed. He felt her pulse quicken and she woke with a gasp and carefully pried Logan off of her, tears filling her own eyes. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. He felt himself fall back but was out before he hit the ground.


	20. Waking Up

Logan drifted in and out of consciousness before actually waking up. Gingerbread hit his nose soon after but, once again, he found himself unable to move. Jean peeled away various bandages that were stuck to him and felt the skin, presumably to make sure that his injuries had actually healed. Though he could feel that he was no longer cut and bruised, he felt as though he'd had a building collapse on him.

She moved to his stomach and hit a sensitive spot, causing his eyes to snap open. "That tickles," he said tiredly, lifting her hand from his skin.

He looked up to see her beaming down at him. "Hey," she said softly.

He felt himself smile back, unable to resist her charm. "Hey."

"How are you feeling?"

"Fantastic," he said dryly.

"That was a brave thing you did."

He blinked, unsure of what she was talking about. Then his brain kicked into gear… Marie! "Did it work?"

"Yeah. She's fine." She cocked an eyebrow and smirked down at him. "She took on a few of your more charming personality traits for a while, but we lived through it. I don't know what we would have done if Storm hadn't kept her in check." Logan frowned and Jean smiled in response. "I know. I was surprised too, but it's true. She was that bad."

"Somehow I just can't see that."

She smirked down at him. "Are you too tired to have your brain poked at a little?"

He was more than too tired for that, but she'd caught his interest. He shrugged. "I see no reason why not."

"Then let me show you." She placed her cool fingers on his forehead and after a minute his vision shifted. He was in one of the classrooms with about fifteen students. Jean and Ororo stood at the front, explaining something scientific.

"So the barometric pressure begins to drop," Jean was saying. "Precipitation begins, and the air starts to move more rapidly."

Ororo nodded. "Now lightning strikes occur when strong thermal updrafts cause water droplets and ice crystals to collide, creating positively and negatively charged particles."

"Are you sure about that?" Marie asked without bothering to raise her hand. While Jean wore a patient smile, Logan noticed that Ororo's eyebrow twitched in annoyance. If he had to, Logan would have guessed that this wasn't Marie's first offense. "I thought that when the negative charges collected at the bottom of the cloud, it forced the negative charges in the ground to be pushed away from the surface, leaving the positive charges."

"Yes, Marie, that's another good way to look at it," Jean said calmly.

"Don't tempt me to demonstrate," Ororo muttered. She'd said it in a low enough voice that Marie shouldn't have heard it. But Jean had said that she'd taken on some of his personality, so it made sense that she'd gotten keener senses from him as well. And judging by the look of outrage she wore a second later, it appeared that she'd heard Ororo clearly.

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" Marie shouted, standing up. "Don't tempt you, eh? I'll tempt whoever the hell I want! I don't have to stand for that! I'm a _mother fuckin' princess!!_"

The vision became blurry and after blinking for a few seconds Logan was back on the hospital bed. He held in his laughter, mostly because he feared that it would hurt if he laughed as loudly as he wanted to. Her outburst had to be an echo of words that she'd normally keep to herself. Logan was one to speak his mind more often than not, and that trait had probably been given to Marie. He was sure that the intellect had certainly not been his own, but more than likely Magneto's. The very thought almost drained him of all humor.

"She didn't get much farther before Ororo put her in her place," Jean said with a poorly concealed smile. "It wasn't pretty, so I won't go into the details."

"I don't doubt it," Logan said with a weak smile of his own. "She certainly had no trouble putting me in my place. But are you sure that it's _my_ personality she got?"

Jean shook her head with a smile and went back to checking Logan's vitals. "I think she's a little taken with you," she commented softly.

Logan smirked slightly. "That's cute, but she's half my age at the very least."

The smile on Jean's face slipped away and Logan frowned a little too. "I wasn't talking about Marie."

Logan frowned up at Jean. "Well, who did you mean?" Jean twisted her hands uncomfortably. It was clear that she hadn't meant to slip up and say that it wasn't Marie, and now she looked as though she regretted saying anything at all. If she didn't want to tell him, he certainly wasn't going to force it. "Well, whoever it is, you can tell her that my heart belongs to someone else," he told her with a smile.

Somehow, she managed to look even more uncomfortable, and Logan felt her pulse pick up. "Logan, you and I – "

"How's the professor?" Logan decided to quickly change the subject. If she wanted to say whatever she had been thinking, then she'd say it regardless. And if she was getting too uncomfortable with that conversation – for whatever reason – then she was off the hook.

It appeared that she favored the latter, as she accepted the shift without complaint. "He's good."

"Good."

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips. "I'd have fallen if you hadn't held me steady up there. I was terrified."

"I know. So was I." She went back to checking his vitals, visibly relaxed. In turn, Logan relaxed as well. "That was a pretty close call, Logan. I tried not to panic when I found out that I didn't have any control over you – "

Logan blinked and gave her a horrified look. "I'm sorry. Let's run that by me again, because I don't think that I heard that right."


	21. Saying Goodbye

I'd like to thank each and every one of my readers. Whether you read the first paragraph and got bored or stuck around 'til this moment… Thank you. You've kept me going thus far. I'm amazed – to say the very least – at the response that I've gotten. So amazed that I've been diligently working on X2 to prevent an angry mob from breaking down my door. Unfortunately, I'm off for another vacation before the summer is through. But when I get back, we're going to get to part two! Until then, thank you for reading 'The Scent of a Storm!' Enjoy!

* * *

Logan packed all the clothes he'd been given into a backpack and headed down the hall to the staircase. After he'd regained his strength, Xavier had taken a look inside his mind and had come up with a location; an abandoned military compound at Alkali Lake, which happened to be somewhere in the Canadian Rockies. Logan wasn't exactly sure of what he might find there, but it was certainly worth a look if it was some connection to his past.

As he came down the stairs, he caught Marie's peppermint scent and his own scent clung to her as well – fresh grass. She was playing pinball with some of the other kids, and she looked truly happy. Logan smirked and continued to the door. He didn't want to pull her away from her friends for a sappy good-bye, and it wasn't really his style anyhow, so it seemed better to just leave. But no sooner had he made it out the first set of doors than her voice halted him. "Hey!"

He turned to face her and saw that she seemed a little put out. Perhaps she _had_ wanted a sappy good-bye in front of her new friends. Logan knew better than to think that Marie actually had a real thing for him. While part of him had been transferred to Marie, it felt like part of her had also been transferred to him. He knew that she had a slight crush on him, but he knew a phase when he saw one. She did however, have a special affection towards him, but he didn't dare place it under the category of a daughter's love for her father. She was a teenager, and certainly the last thing she wanted was for her friend to be her father figure. He did, however, detect that she saw him as something of a big bad brother. That suited him just fine.

"You running again?" she asked in her heavy southern accent.

"No, not really," Logan replied easily. He adjusted the backpack, feeling even more awkward than he had on the train when talking to her. He must have inherited some of her shyness as well. "I have some things to take care of up north. I shouldn't be too long."

She stared at him expectantly. Though she didn't say thank you, he could see in her eyes that she was grateful. He touched the lock of white hair that fell in her face with a smirk. "I'm thinking of dying all of it white," she said with a shrug. His eyes snapped up to hers and she smirked. "Oh, relax. Actually, I think I'll leave it the way it is. I kind of like it."

Logan tried not to let the fact that she sounded like him shake him visibly. Instead, he smirked. "You don't need to tell me to relax, _princess_."

"I figured you'd hear about that from someone." She blushed, but laughed despite her embarrassment. "I don't want you to go," she said with a sad smile.

Though they both knew that he had to go, he knew what she meant. She didn't want him to leave and not come back. Nodding, he dug through a few of his pockets before remembering that it was around his neck. He took off his dog tag and took her gloved hand, carefully placing the chain in her opened palm. He closed her hand and held on a moment longer before letting go. "I'll be back for this," he said, looking into her eyes. "And your face better be the first one I see when I get back here."

He gave her a smile and turned to leave. "Thanks," he heard her whisper before the doors closed behind him.

The glare of the sun hit him as he stepped outside and he inhaled the fresh air around him, wondering for the first time how the hell he was supposed to get back to Canada. He caught a whiff of chrome and gasoline and turned around with a grin. Perched against the wall, begging to be taken on a _real_ road trip, was Scott's bike.

He hopped on eagerly but before he could push the button to start it, a soft breeze carried Ororo's scent right to his lungs. In a bit of a daze, he turned and saw her leaning against the wall, studying at him like a cat might study a mouse. He winced. "So what's the verdict? You still hate me?"

"I never _hated_ you," she said smoothly, looking him up and down. "I hated the things you said about me, but I put those feelings aside for the sake of the mission. I even waited until Jean was sure that you were going to be all right before I allowed myself to be mad at you again. Aren't I merciful?"

"Truly."

"I'm sure you've heard that I blew off a little steam on Rogue."

"I didn't get the details. Part of me really doesn't want them."

"The good news for you is that I've calmed down a little and I'm not quite as mad anymore."

"Oh, well that's…" He let the sentence hang in the air, not exactly sure of what it was.

"I'm sure by the time you find your way back I'll have forgiven you."

He raised his eyebrow with a cocky smirk. "What makes you so sure that I'm coming back?"

Her smile disappeared and she narrowed her eyes at him, though she seemed to be studying him in a less threatening way. "I think you will," she said after a moment. "You're not stupid. You know that you've found a home here with people who'll understand you. You have friends to come back to, a team to be a part of…"

"You'll have your punching bag back," he said hopefully. She pushed herself off of the wall and walked up to him. His heart quickened but he didn't dare show it. She stopped in front of him and he rose from the motorcycle so that he was looking down into her blue eyes. Her pulse was annoyingly calm, possibly half as slow as his.

"Damn straight I will," she said a smirk as cocky as his. She looked like she wanted to say more, but she bit her bottom lip at the last second. The movement drew his attention to her lips and Logan was fully aware of how close they were. Leaning down about an inch or two would close the gap between them…

Ororo smirked and leaned forward and gave him a peck on his chin. He rose an eyebrow at her and she shrugged. "You didn't even try," she said flatly. "I'm not reaching all the way up there. Meet me half way. What's wrong with you?"

Logan frowned before he understood exactly what she was talking about; she'd been waiting for him to kiss her! He bent down eagerly, only to have Ororo's hand cover his face and push it away. "Like hell," she said, taking a step back. "It's too late for that now. The moment is gone."

Logan rolled his eyes and sat back down on the bike, scowling at Ororo, who gave him a dazzling smile. "Can I ask you a serious question," he said suddenly. She nodded, crossing her arms and he continued. "How could you forgive me so quickly? I ought to be apologizing on my knees for some of the things I said about you." They fell silent, and Ororo raised a brow, prompting him to continue. "I said that I _should_, not that I was going to."

"How sweet. I think I just forgave you all over again," she said sourly. He smirked and she bit the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. "I guess I'm not quite as angry as I should be because you were right. We sure as hell aren't fanatics, but we do rely a little too heavily on the professor for information. And I agree that humanity, on some level, knows that what they're trying to do to us is wrong. They tend to think of the short term effects, but not everyone is like that. There are plenty of humans that fight for our cause and are ridiculed and scorned as badly as we are." Logan smirked victoriously and Ororo shook her head. "Don't give me that. You risked life and limb to save an entire city filled with people you never have and never will meet. People that you think are the reason behind our suffering. You could have walked out the door before Senator Kelly arrived. You could have drifted right past him and walked out when you saw him at the door, but you didn't because you wanted to help. I think I rubbed off on you too."

He nodded slowly, looking away from her. He certainly could have left before Kelly had come, but Ororo was the reason that he'd stayed. He certainly wouldn't tell her that. Ever. Aside from how smug she'd be, it seemed that admitting to that would just be too personal. "I think I'm okay with you rubbing off on me," he said instead.

She frowned and looked down, and Logan followed her gaze. She was staring at his knuckles, causing him to shift uncomfortably. She spoke suddenly, as though she'd been bottling this inside. "You asked me what humans did to me, and I told you that I'd overcome the trials of my past." She took a long breath before looking into his eyes. "They put me in a cage."

"That would be where the claustrophobia came from?"

She scowled, and Logan bit his tongue. _Dammit._ "I'll kill Jean," she muttered darkly. "Very slowly."

Logan smirked, but the expression wasn't genuine. Half a second before she'd uttered those words, a strange look had crossed her features. Disappointment, maybe? And before she'd admitted to her trial, her eyes had been searching. Had she expected him to respond differently to this news? He certainly wanted to apologize for what she had gone through, but he sure as hell wasn't going to do it on behalf of the human race. And he got the feeling that she'd be infuriated if he was at all sorry for her.

He wanted to ask if there had been some hidden meaning or test in what she'd told him, but it seemed that, once again, the moment was gone. She'd changed the subject, and Logan didn't want to press the matter. He decided that, if he remembered, he might ask her about it later, when the time was right. He wondered if the time would ever be right for such and inquiry, but decided that if it came, he'd know.

He started the motorcycle and looked back at Ororo, who'd taken a few steps back. "Are you sure you should be taking Scott's bike again?" she asked.

Logan shrugged, smirking. "He left the keys in. He has no one to blame but himself."

"I'll be sure to tell him that."

"And I'll be back for that kiss, babe."

"I bet you will." She winked at him. "But I hope you know that you're going to have to work for it."

"The work is half the fun!" He threw the bike in gear and rode off with a smile so wide that his cheeks hurt. He still wanted to see Marie first upon his return to the mansion, but he knew exactly who he wanted to see – and smell – after that. After even a few days, white hair and rain forest scents were sure to plague his dreams.

_All the more reason to do what I need to do and make my way back home._


	22. Another Dead End

UGH! Boy, vacations are nice and all, but it's always good to come home!

Okay: I brought my small laptop to work on this story, and I unfortunately let my imagination get the best of me. While I have an elaborate plot for our heroes later in the story, I still have a lot of work to do with where we're at now. BUT, never fear! I don't have much of a life right now - and it's not for lack of trying - so I have plenty of time to work on this story. I also changed the title, because since this story is in parts, it made more sense to me that the first part was 'The Scent of a Storm.' I like it, and my best friend likes it, so that's good enough for me.

As usual, enjoy!

* * *

**Part Two: Caught in the Storm  
**

Logan roared as he charged down the alley between the cages, his arms stretched out and slicing all of the locks on the cells to shreds. He turned around and watched all the newly released mutants scramble out of their cells and rush about to help others. One boy in particular, no older than seventeen, wore a metal plate over his eyes. Someone grabbed him immediately and pointed him in the right direction. Another one had multiple straps all over his body to restrict movement, and others rushed in to take them off.

Logan heard muffled crying and turned to the cell closest on his right. The cage was coated in a layer of frost, and a young girl with dark skin and wild hair sat in the far corner, brilliant white eyes wide and vacant. Her heart was pounding erratically and her breathing was heavy. Through the thickness of her black hair, he saw one bright streak of white sticking out above her right eye. The mild scent of fresh rain clung to her skin, and it was surprisingly pleasant.

Though she looked to be possibly seven or eight, the over-sized red jumpsuit made her seem half her actual size. Logan knew that the other mutants would help her in a matter of time, but some unknown force pulled him inside the freezing cold cage. Despite the temperature – what made a weather worn Canadian man shiver – she didn't seem to be the least bit cold. She seemed scared.

"What's wrong, kid?"

"Not enough room," she whispered in a heavy African accent. "I don't sleep inside. I sleep in the grass, or in the rain. I slept in the snow once. It wasn't so bad."

Logan wasn't accustomed to dealing with frightened children, but he'd been one once a long time ago, and he hadn't been too much older than she was now. He picked her up and carried her out of the cage. The second he was over the threshold, her response was immediate; her breathing slowed, her pulse returned to normal, and her cloudy white eyes faded into an ice blue that sent a shiver up Logan's spine. He pushed her thick hair out of her face and gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

"You see that group over there?" He pointed to the group of escaped mutants and she turned wide blue eyes to look at them. "If you go with them, they'll take you outside. But you need to hurry so that you'll all escape. And you need to help each other, because you're all you've got. If you take care of that blind kid and be his eyes, I bet he'll return the favor by keeping you safe since he's older and stronger."

Truthfully, Logan didn't know if the boy was blind or not, but that didn't change the fact that he was older and probably strong enough to protect the young girl. He was the oldest, after the blond woman, and Logan hoped that he'd take charge of the group despite his inability to see.

Logan looked back down at the young girl in his arms to see her frowning thoughtfully at the group of mutants. "Okay," she said finally. "I'll take care of him."

Logan gave her a satisfied nod and set her down. She was terribly short, and Logan wondered if his estimation of her age had been accurate, as she looked to be six from such a height. She took two steps toward the group before turning and staring up at Logan. "How are you going to help?"

"I'm going to keep you safe by fighting off the people that are going to come for you."

Her eyes widened and he cursed himself for how he'd worded that. He hadn't meant to scare her. "They're going to come for me?"

The damage was done, so he knelt down and looked straight into her chilling blue eyes. "Yes, they are. They're going to come for all of you, but I promise I won't let them catch you."

-

Logan woke with a start, looking around him wildly. He gave a sigh of relief when he realized that he wasn't in some storage room with mutants in cages, but rather deep in the forest, stealing a few hours of sleep before continuing on his journey to Alkali Lake.

Though he'd set out to find the military base six weeks ago, he'd gotten a little sidetracked by what he'd thought were memories and clues. All of them turned up a whole lot of nothing, but he hadn't lost heart. Unfortunately, the pursuit of ghosts had resulted in him wasting those weeks away when he could have gone straight to Alkali Lake as Xavier had suggested. He wondered at the significance of the dream he'd just had, but shrugged it off, knowing that his mind had to be playing tricks on him again.

He rubbed his eyes roughly to wake himself up and hopped onto Scott's motorcycle. In about three months, he could honestly say that he'd gotten in fifteen or twenty good hours of sleep, not counting the sleep he'd gotten when he'd been knocked out. Although his healing factor kicked in to prevent physical fatigue, his mind was so far past exhaustion that he seriously wondered how he was able to function.

Grumbling colorful curses, Logan started the engine and got on the highway, continuing his ride. After spending so much time in this general area searching for false clues to his past, Logan practically had the roads memorized. He'd stopped looking at the map by the end of his first week back in Canada, and hadn't touched it since. He'd gotten lost more than once, but rather enjoyed the feeling.

He didn't know exactly where he'd find this base, but he suspected that his instincts were, for once, pulling him in the right direction. He'd passed at least two trees by now that had worn claw marks that matched his own claws perfectly, so it was only a matter of time before something came to him.

It was cold, and the wind from the motorcycle ride only made it colder, but it wasn't too much for him to handle. He'd been in Canada for fifteen years – that he knew of – and was more than used to the biting cold. And his healing power kicked in before he froze too much anyway.

He drove by another patch of trees with his claw marks on them, but this time about ten of them were marked. He pulled the motorcycle to the side of the road by the trees and cut the engine, staring at the marks curiously. Inside, it felt like he was going in the right direction, so he got off the bike, grabbed his backpack and started trudging through the snow. The forest wasn't too terribly dense, and it only took five minutes of walking for him to finally break free of the trees.

Then he got a view of the lake. He was on the beach and had a very clear view, but he didn't see anything resembling a military base, abandoned or otherwise. Mountains on one side, forest on the other side, and an ice cold lake water in the middle. He shrugged, turning right and continuing his hike. If he kept going and saw nothing for twenty minutes, he'd just turn around and try the other way. And if not… Well, he had a map for a reason, and though he occasionally enjoyed getting lost, he wasn't too proud to use it.

But after another five minutes of walking, he began to spot barbed wire fencing. And then he saw the dam. He took out a cigar and lit it, puffing lightly and savoring his victory. Xavier had said that the base was in the dam, and he'd found the dam. Now he just had to find a way inside. He continued on his hike and arrived at the entrance of the base in less than half an hour.

A white wolf stood in front of the large, rotting wooden doors of the entrance like a guard and Logan stilled the moment he saw it. He didn't feel like killing the animal, but if he had a sudden threatening move, it would attack and he'd have no choice. However, if it got his scent then it would probably run away on it's own. Logan knew that he had the scent and look of a predator, and sure enough, it caught his scent and its ears fell back apprehensively as it trotted into the entrance.

The place looked completely abandoned, even from the outside. Logan slowly walked forward and looked at the plank on the side of the entrance. 'Alkali Lake Industrial Complex.' This _had_ to be it. While all the other 'memories' he'd chased had felt like mild déjà vu, he truly felt like he _knew_ this place, like he'd been here.

But walking through the rotted doors he was met with the ultimate disappointment; a clearing of snow and rubble.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

_Another_ dead end.

_Dammit, Xavier…_

Logan closed his eyes in defeat and growled in annoyance. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He'd have to go back to Xavier and get the old man to read his mind again, because there was nothing for him to find here. He knew he'd been here – the marks on the trees proved it – but there was nothing for him to search for here.

Besides, he was willing to admit that he wouldn't mind seeing Marie again. Or Jean. And Ororo had said something about him earning kiss…

He took one last look around him before tossing his cigar and turning around, jogging back to the motorcycle to blow off some steam. Maybe, if he was still a little heated, he'd stop by the Lion's Den Bar. It was only four hours away. _A cold beer and a good fight sounds pretty damn good right about now,_ he thought with a smirk.

But after that, he was off to Westchester. He'd only been gone for a month and a half, but it was time to go home. _Ororo was right. She _did_ rub off on me._


	23. Welcome Home Logan

The ride had been shorter than he'd anticipated. Logan found himself sitting in a bar enjoying a beer and a cigar and hour earlier than he'd expected. He'd found a bar that was closer than Lion's Den, and after weighing the pros and cons of actually participating in the cage fight, he figured that it'd be better to go to a different bar altogether. The bartender there was sure to remember him and the chaos he'd caused.

_I'm an unforgettable guy, _he thought with a smirk, taking a long drag of his cigar.

He slapped his fee and tip on the bar counter and was about to leave when he heard something that made him sit back down. "Breaking news! We're coming to you live from Washington, where there's been an attack in the Oval Office of the White House."

"Hey, turn it up," one of the patrons shouted. The bar had quieted considerably, and all eyes and ears were on the small screen behind the bar as the bartender cranked up the volume as high as it went.

"Details are still coming in, but we've been informed that the President and the Vice-President were not harmed. We are waiting for confirmation from the White House, but informed sources have told Fox News that the assailant has been tentatively identified as one or more mutants."

"Never should've let them mutants slide after that shit in the U.S.," a drunk shouted.

"Hear hear!" another man agreed, raising his beer bottle.

Logan discretely looked in the direction of a mutant he'd identified in the bar. She wore thick glasses, had a thin layer of sweat on her face, and smelled like salt water. She'd ordered five large glasses of ice water only fifteen minutes ago, and only one was left. When the drunken cheers had erupted, the water began to boil and she stormed out with a lingering glance in Logan's direction.

A few unfriendly stares followed her out of the bar and they soon drifted in Logan's direction. Clearing his throat uncomfortably, Logan followed suit, not bothering to listen to the rest of the report. It was definitely time to get back to the mansion.

-

He rode the motorcycle onto the school grounds and parked it right where he'd found it before he'd left, taking the keys out. He easily found the front doors and opened them wide, not expecting a warm welcome. But, to his surprise, the first face he saw was exactly the one he'd been hoping for.

"Logan!" Marie cried happily, flinging herself at him.

He bent down slightly and wrapped his arms around her, returning her tight hug. "You miss me, kid?"

She shrugged, though her smile was wider than he'd ever seen. "Not really."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah, sure. How're you doing?"

"I'm okay," she said with a happy nod. "How about you?"

Logan shrugged nonchalantly and nodded to a young man that was now standing behind her. He smelled like dry ice, but being that Logan had just been surrounded by Canadian snow, it didn't bother him much. What _did_ bother him was the fact that the boy looked like he wanted to engage in a standoff with Logan. "What's this?"

"Oh, this is Bobby." she looked terribly excited and the look in her eyes practically screamed, '_Do you like him, daddy?' _Logan quickly silenced that thought. There was no reason for her to think of him as her surrogate father. Still, she did seem to genuinely want his approval. She turned to the boy next to her with an even wider smile. "He's my – "

"I'm her boyfriend," the boy said pointedly, standing tall and offering his hand for Logan to shake. Logan took it and knew for a fact that the boy was gripping hard on purpose. It took more than a little willpower to keep from pointing out that Bobby might break his hand on Logan's metal bones if he gripped any harder.

"Bobby," Logan said slowly. "As in the Bobby that lied and told you that Xavier was mad at you? And I think you mentioned that he told you that leaving the mansion was a good idea. That Bobby?"

Marie shook her head. "Actually, that was – "

"One and the same," the young boy said, coating Logan's hand with a thin layer of ice. "They call me Iceman."

"I bet they do." Logan pulled his hand away with a raised brow and examined the frost on his hand. _Isn't that sweet? He thinks he's got a pair…_

But Marie looked so excited that he the thought of wiping away her beautiful smile was out of the question. He'd deal with this tough guy one on one later. "Right." A wicked idea came to mind and Logan simply couldn't resist. "Boyfriend, eh? So how do you guys – ?"

While Marie smiled up at Bobby with a light blush, he looked down at her and became flustered and a bit irritated. "Well," he said, clearing his throat uncomfortably. "We're still working on that."

Logan gave the younger man a dangerous smile. "Diligently, I hope."

Bobby's pulse rose and began smelling of fear, while Marie looked like she was on the verge of laughter. "I didn't, uh… you meant – "

"Well, well, well." Logan turned his attention to the staircase and saw the gorgeous face of the second woman he'd been hoping to see. The white shirt and leather pants she wore clung to her body like a second skin, and her hair was shorter than he remembered. _But beautiful, as always. _"Look who's returned."

Logan wiggled his eyebrows in an effort to ignore the frantic pounding of his heart in his ears. Despite the minimal change in her appearance, she was still every bit a goddess. He inhaled her powerful rain forest scent deeply and almost let out a contented sigh. She smelled better then he remembered. "Isn't that what the prodigal son does?"

"I'll ask the next time he stops by." She stopped in front of him, her smile wide and her eyes bright. "I won't fault your timing, though."

"Is that so?" he asked with a devilish grin. "And why would that be, Ro."

Ororo's smile disappeared and instead a weary look appeared on her face. "Don't call me that," she said flatly. "Lord knows I get it enough from T'Challa when he visits. I couldn't stand _you_ calling me that, too."

Logan resisted the urge to ask who T'Challa was. Just because she had a friend that called her Ro, didn't mean that there was cause for concern. He knew he shouldn't be nosy, and she was certainly free to have friends aside from Jean, Scott and Xavier.

But he'd never heard her mention the name before, so he hoped that this T'Challa wasn't terribly important to her. At least, not in the sense that _he_ wanted to be terribly important to her…

Yes, he was being overly possessive. He didn't particularly care. "Whatever you say, babe. So, why do I have such good timing?"

The fresh happiness returned to her face. She seemed to like that term of endearment better than a nickname, and Logan hid a smirk at the small victory. "We need a baby-sitter."

"Baby-sitter, eh?" He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Sad day. I was actually just on my way out…"

A delighted laugh echoed from above and all eyes turned to the staircase. "Nice form, but a little rough on the landing."

Logan grinned up at Jean and she smiled back. "Guess I'll have to settle for the bronze," he said with a shrug.

She laughed again and joined the small group in the foyer with a smile. Logan turned back to Ororo to see that her smile looked a little forced. "Well, it was nice to see you again, Logan. Umm, I should go… and get the jet ready." The words came out in a rush and Ororo made a hasty exit. Logan frowned after her, wondering why she would leave so quickly.

"Yeah, well, it was good to meet you," Bobby said with a hint of false sincerity.

Logan raised an eyebrow at Bobby. "I'm sure we'll meet again before too long."

He gave Bobby another dangerous smile and the youth swallowed hard, quickly turning and pulling Marie with him. "That's… I…" His voice cracked horribly as he tried to speak coherently. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Come on, Rogue. Let's go."

Marie gave Logan a winning smile before allowing Bobby to pull her along without fuss. "Bye, Logan. I'll see you later."

"Sure thing," he said, and returned his attention to Jean, the only person left. She too had cut her hair, but Logan found that he preferred this style to the plain ponytail she'd opted for when they'd last met.

And her gingerbread scent was stronger, but the ginger and cinnamon were more distinct now, almost at odds instead of blending together. He wondered if it was because she'd gotten more powerful, but didn't ask. That seemed like the most likely explanation, and somehow it seemed impolite to ask. Besides, Ororo's scent hadn't seemed too different. Then again, her scent was always deliciously overpowering to Logan…

"Storm and I are heading out," she said without preamble. She must have caught the slight disappointment in his eyes or in his mind because her next words were, "We won't be gone long. The professor wants us to track down the mutant who attacked the president. Apparently he keeps jumping around and is hard to locate so he's going to give us the coordinates from the air."

Logan nodded. "So it _was_ a mutant," he said thoughtfully.

"You'll be here when we get back, won't you? Or do you plan on running off again?" She gave him a sly smile.

He shrugged with a smirk. "Well, I guess I could probably think of a few reasons to stick around." She gave him a wide smile, but something about her smile seemed forced too. What _was_ with the women today?

Angry stomping and the smell of burnt wood caused Logan to look up at the staircase one last time. _Lucky day, my ass,_ he thought as he watched Scott stomp down the stairs. "You find what you were looking for, Logan?" he asked impatiently.

_Hell no. _"More or less," he answered flatly, returning his gaze the Jean. She offered him a much better view.

"I'll see you boys later," Jean said with a raised brow, excusing herself in the direction that Ororo had gone.

"Be safe, okay?" Scott told her, all malice gone from his voice.

"You too," she said sweetly, planting a lingering kiss on Scott's lips. She turned back to Logan with a winning smile. "Bye." _"Try not to kill each other," _she said inside his mind, clear as day

"Yeah, see ya," he said gruffly. He'd had to briefly look away, as he wasn't the biggest fan of public displays of affection. However, if the right woman – white haired and blue eyed, of course – were giving him a goodbye kiss, he'd probably want an audience too.

That thought was dropped the moment Scott turned his indignant gaze back to Logan, and the latter tried not to laugh out loud. Scott was certainly possessive of Jean, and he still seemed to think that Logan had his eyes on her. _Whatever. _"Aren't you going to welcome me home?"

Nothing.

"Nice wheels," Logan said as he dug the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Scott. "She needs gas."

Scott caught the keys and looked downright angry. "Then fill her up," he snapped, throwing the keys back with more force that was necessary. Logan caught them with ease as Scott stomped away and Logan was left alone in the foyer, smirking to himself as he inhaled the last of Ororo's scent.

"Welcome home Logan," he said to himself in a voice a few tones deeper than his own. "Yes, thank you," he replied in his own voice. "Thank you, everyone. It's good to come home to a warm welcome. Not at all frigid…"


	24. Read My Mind

Well, I'm sorry for the slow parts, but they're a necessary evil. Everyone's favorite weather witch is out on a special mission and life must go on for Logan. Not to worry, though… They'll be together again soon enough. *Sigh* But, until then… Enjoy!

* * *

After a lot of searching and more than one wrong turn, Logan finally found Xavier in the first place he should have looked; Cerebro. The metal doors were wide open and Logan stepped in without a second thought, puffing on his cigar. He was halfway across the bridge when it finally crossed his mind that he should have asked to enter.

_Screw it, _he thought with a shrug. Logan had no doubt that Xavier would have shut him out if he wasn't welcome inside. "How goes it, Chuck?"

"Logan," Xavier said briskly, "My tolerance for your smoking in the mansion notwithstanding, continue smoking that in here and you'll spend the rest of your days under the belief that you're a six-year-old girl."

Logan frowned and looked at his cigar before staring at the back of Xavier's head. "You'd do that?" he asked, more curious than frightened.

"I'd have Jean braid your hair. Welcome back."

_At least someone missed me… _Xavier placed the metal helmet on his head. Logan's vision blurred and he saw himself being tucked in my Ororo. He would have found the image pleasant, but noticed that he was wearing frilly pink pajamas and Marie and Jean stood at the door of his room, snickering madly. Logan had to shake his head to make the scene disappear.

"You wouldn't," he accused, searching for a way to put the cigar out nonetheless. Seeing no other alternative, Logan finally smashed the burning end into the palm of his hand. He ground his teeth but a hiss of pain still slid past his lips. Though he hadn't really thought that putting it out in this way would be particularly painful, he'd turned out to be quite wrong. He blinked away the stars that were blurring his vision and looked behind him to see that the doors of Cerebro had closed. "You want me to leave?"

"No," Xavier said calmly. "Just don't move." The machine began powering up and soon Logan was met with a large world map with thousands of white dots. It was breathtaking, though he wasn't sure what the lights were.

"These lights represent every living person on the planet," Xavier explained. Logan nodded and looked around. The lights were all around him, above him and even – he swallowed – far below him. He heard his pulse in his own ears but didn't bother to try hiding it. Xavier was preoccupied, and the increase in his heart rate wasn't significant. "The white lights are humans." The lights shifted to red, and Logan noticed that while they were numerous, there weren't nearly as many red dots as there had been white. "And these red ones are the mutants."

That made sense. Logan heard voices around him, much as he had the day he'd first arrived here but they were all quiet and blurred together, rather than distinct. "Through Cerebro, I'm connected to them, and they to me."

"All of them?"

"Every one."

Logan looked around at the entire map of red lights again and whistled in wonderment. From day one, it had been clear that professor Charles Xavier was a powerful mutant. But to be connected to every single mutant on the planet had to take a massive amount of power. Xavier had to be one of the most powerful mutants in the world.

"You see, Logan? We're not as alone as you think."

Something about that statement triggered Logan's memory as to why he'd been looking for Xavier in the first place. "I found the base at Alkali Lake. There was nothing there."

"That broken line there represents the path of the mutant who attacked the president." Logan snorted and rolled his eyes. He didn't see any broken line, and it was clear that Xavier was too focused on the task at hand to indulge Logan. That was fine; he'd waited fifteen years for his memories and connections to his past. He didn't want to, but he could wait a few more minutes.

"I've been finding it difficult to get a lock on him."

Logan shrugged. "Well, can't you just concentrate harder?"

"Of course I could, if I wanted to kill him." Logan shook his head. _It figures. He always has the answer._ "There!" Xavier whispered excitedly. "It appears that he's stopped in Boston."

An image of someone hunched over with a cross in their hands became larger and louder. He was whispering in German, and Logan wasn't particularly surprised that he understood what the mutant was saying. In the past fifteen years he'd also discovered that he knew Russian, Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese and Lakota. Now he could add German to that list.

The map and figure slowly disappeared and the metal plates and pristine emptiness of Cerebro's walls returned. As Xavier removed his helmet, Logan decided that now he'd have the professor's attention. "I need you to read my mind again."

"Logan…" The old man sighed heavily and waited a moment before turning his wheelchair and looking up at Logan. "I'm afraid the results will be the same as before."

It was clear that Xavier had things to do, but Logan was getting irritated with the old man at an alarming rate. The failure of what he'd found – or rather, what he hadn't found – had left a bad taste in his mouth. And after a month and a half… "We had a deal."

"The mind is not a box that can simply be unlocked and opened. It's a beehive with a million different compartments that…"

"Spare me the lecture," Logan said shortly.

"I have no doubt that your amnesia, your adamantium skeleton, your claws and your dreams are all somehow connected…"

"What dreams?" Xavier blinked, his face perfectly smooth and impassive and Logan narrowed his eyes at the old man. Logan knew better than to think that it was a slip of the tongue. Xavier was smarter then that, so perhaps he hadn't anticipated that mentioning his dreams would get him riled up. "I don't recall mentioning any dreams other than the one you saw where I'm being experimented on."

"And that was indeed a memory. Since it was in the form of a dream, I naturally assumed that your other memories would come to you in the same way. The minute you stepped into the room, I sensed that your mind was, for lack of a better term, less vacant. I was sure that you were gone for so long because you'd dreamt more memories and were following clues."

"Yeah, that's exactly what happened." Logan crossed his arms and glared down at Xavier. "I had a dream about fighting in the Civil War, World War One, World War Two, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. I dreamt that I fought alongside Sabretooth through all five of those wars and was proud to have him at my side. I even dreamt that I saved Storm when she was eight years old."

"Logan, I can understand. Trying to decipher your origins based on a few dreams must be very taxing, but sometimes the mind needs to discover things for itself. These things take time."

"My mind has had _fifteen years_ to discover things for itself," he snapped, narrowing his eyes. Xavier sighed again, but didn't seem to be upset. In the back of his mind, Logan admired the old man. One of them had to stay calm and collected, and Logan sure as hell wasn't known for his patience.

"I promise you we'll talk again when I return." He wheeled past Logan without looking at him and Logan let out an angry huff. Xavier was evasive had hard to understand more often than not, but he was a man of his word. If he promised that they'd talk, then Logan would just have to wait until he got back.

"Are you going to ask me to watch the kids too?"

"If you would be kind enough, yes. After I call Jean and Storm with the coordinates they need, Scott and I are going to visit an old friend."

"By 'old friend' I assume you mean Magneto… " Logan's lip curled up as he remembered his last encounter with the metal manipulating mutant. "Make sure to give him _my_ regards," he called down the hall. "Tell him to rot in hell. He got off easy for what he did to Rogue."

"_There are children in the house,"_ Xavier warned him. Logan strolled out of Cerebro with a shrug, popping his unlit cigar back into his mouth. If he'd gotten his way, Magneto would have been thrown over the side of the Statue of Liberty in place of Sabretooth. No one touched his Marie and got away with it.

Death wasn't good enough for Sabretooth. Logan may have had plenty of dreams where he'd proudly fought beside Sabretooth, but that couldn't possibly make up for trying to choke Ororo. And then he'd had the nerve to say that she owed him a scream…

Logan wouldn't even know how to begin punishing Sabretooth, but it wouldn't be as simple as throwing him off the side of a hundred foot statue. If Logan had had his way with Sabretooth, it would have been slow, painful, and _very_ creative.


	25. Man To Man

Logan woke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in his bed. His sheets were sticky with sweat, his pillow was on the other side of the room, and it felt like he'd shifted the position of his mattress. But he hadn't destroyed anything, and his claws were still retracted. That was an improvement, considering that he'd dreamt of being experimented on again.

After he'd accidentally stabbed Marie, he'd had to work hard to teach himself to keep his claws retracted. More often then not, he simply dozed so that he'd be half awake and in control in the event that his claws did jump out. Tonight he'd tried actually sleeping, and he was impressed with himself for not destroying anything, considering the fact that he'd had yet another nightmare. While it had been vivid for him in the past, it had never been so vivid that he'd even heard people talking.

"_He'll be indestructible."_

"_Inject the adamantium."_

And then the needles had punctured his skin, and the white hot liquid metal was injected into his bones…

Logan shivered and swung his legs over the side of the bed, rubbing his temples. He didn't _need_ to sleep. He very much wanted to, but if he was going of dream of pain and horror every time he shut his eyes, then perhaps a tired mind was the price to pay for not having a troubled mind. At times like this he was grateful for his healing mutation.

He stood with an annoyed groan and decided to roam the mansion and make sure that none of the children were causing mischief while the X-Men were out. Before he'd gone to bed, he'd chatted with Marie and she'd assured him that everyone at the mansion knew he was here and knew better then to get on his bad side. While he certainly believed her, he got the feeling that the night wasn't going to be uneventful.

He checked the halls upstairs and they all seemed to be relatively quiet. He shrugged, knowing that silence didn't necessarily mean that everyone was sleeping peacefully. It didn't occur to him that the children may just be well behaved, because in a mansion filled with at least seventy-five kids, _one_ of them was bound to be a troublemaker.

He made his way downstairs and heard that the TV was on. Deciding to investigate who was still up at – he checked the position of the moon outside – 2:45-ish, Logan followed the noise to the living room. A boy no older than twelve sat on the couch with perfect posture, staring intently at the TV. He changed the channels every few seconds, but Logan noticed that he held no remote. He looked a little closer and saw that the channels changed every time the child blinked. _Neat trick…_

Blink…

"Global warming is going to kill us all. The Republicans are responsible."

Blink…

"I know you're in there. I hear you caring!"

Blink…

"I've never known you to judge a person based on their beliefs. In fact, you're pretty tolerant of everyone. Except Hugh Jackman…"

Blink…

"Can't sleep?"

It took a second for Logan to realize that he was being addressed. He shook his head and pulled his attention away from the television. "How can you tell?"

Blink…

"Because you're awake."

Blink…

Logan nodded. A child's logic was usually as simple as that. "Right. What's your excuse?"

Blink… Blink… Blink…

He finally settled on a nature show with a bored sigh. "I don't sleep."

"Fair enough," he said with a nod and continued down the hall. He thought about getting something to drink, and when the smell of dry ice drifted into his nose from the kitchen he decided that he ought to do just that.

Sure enough, he found Bobby sitting at the counter, eating out of a container of ice cream. Logan's first thought was that women usually did that when they were depressed about something, but being that this boy's power was ice, he probably just enjoyed eating foods that were cold.

"Hey," he said casually as Logan walked in.

"Doesn't anybody sleep around here?" Logan asked pointedly.

Bobby cocked an eyebrow at Logan and went back to his desert. "Apparently not."

Logan opened the door in the fridge and inhaled, frowning. "Got any beer?"

"This is a school," Bobby said flatly.

Logan opened the other side of the fridge and pouted for half a second before turning back to Bobby. "So that's a no?"

"Yeah, that's a no."

"Got anything other than chocolate milk?"

"… ice water," Bobby mumbled.

"What was that?"

"There should be some soda over there in that small cupboard." Logan followed where the boy's spoon was pointing and pulled a warm Coke bottle out. Popping the cap off, he offered the bottle to Bobby who raised it to his lips. Horrified, Logan nearly recoiled, snapping that he hadn't been offering the boy a first swig. But Bobby blew on the neck of the bottle and the glass frosted over. He handed it back to Logan, perfectly cold.

_Impressive._ "Thanks."

"No problem." Bobby didn't seem quite as territorial as he had earlier, and Logan was sure that he knew why. He wondered if his own reaction to the boy had been so negative because of the fact that he'd made Marie leave. Perhaps if Marie hadn't constantly asked about him - as Jean had insisted that she had - Bobby would have been a little more polite and a little less macho when they'd met earlier.

Perhaps he and Bobby needed to just talk, so that they could size each other up properly. Marie really seemed to like him, and he was reminded of the look in her eyes that begged him to approve of the boy. Logan sat down across from Bobby at the island in the kitchen. "So, how long have you been here?"

"Couple years," he answered easily.

"And your parents just sent you off to mutant school?"

For a second, Bobby looked a little uncomfortable, and Logan wondered if he was pushing this conversation in the wrong direction already. There were plenty of people that weren't on the best of terms with their parents for one reason or another. Marie had that problem, as he'd found out from touching her. In fact, it was logical to assume that most children at Xavier's school had either run away from home or lied to their parents. "Actually, my parents think this is a prep school," he said slowly.

_So he lied. _Logan nodded, starting to feel uncomfortable in his own skin. It was one thing to have a heart to heart with Marie while trying to keep her from running away, but another entirely to have a heart to heart with a boy he didn't know for no reason other than sheer boredom.

No, he refused to believe that. This conversation wasn't for the sake of boredom, it was for Marie's sake. Because, for some reason, she liked this boy, and she wanted Logan to like him too. He'd be damned if he was going out of his way to be uncomfortable for this boy's sake.

Still, Bobby's tone stirred a little pity in Logan's heart. "Oh, I see," he said, hoping he didn't sound too callous. "I suppose lots of prep schools have their own dorms, campuses…"

"Harrier jets?"

"It's a free country." Bobby raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more. There had been something strained in the boy's voice, and Logan couldn't quite place what it was. Nor did he want to, so he changed the subject. "So, you and Rogue, eh?" Logan had noticed that no one called Marie by her name. Part of him wondered if she'd told anyone else her real name. Logan himself only knew her first name.

"Yeah." He examined his ice cream very closely as he spoke. "It's not what you think, though. I mean, I'd like it to be…" He stopped speaking, seemingly horrified at what he'd said. Logan would certainly agree that it was the very last thing that the brat should have said, but he simply leaned in closer to Bobby, causing his pulse to skyrocket. "It's just… it's not easy when you want to be closer to someone… but you can't." Logan nodded solemnly, gazing at his drink. "You know," Bobby said suddenly, "I saw how you looked at Dr. Grey."

Logan narrowed his eyes at the youth. "Excuse me?"

"Nothing," he said innocently.

"No please…" Logan set his empty bottle on the counter with deadly precision and gave Bobby a look cold enough to chill his bones. "Enlighten me."

Bobby swallowed hard and looked anywhere but at Logan. His pulse began to race and Logan could smell him beginning to sweat. "It's just…" He swallowed and began again. "Well, when you saw Dr. Grey come down you looked pretty happy to see her. But you lit up like a Christmas tree when you saw Professor M – "

"I think I get it," Logan snapped. He reached for his bottle to take another drink before realizing that it was empty. He felt his lip curl involuntarily as he struggled not to toss the glass bottle over his shoulder.

Was he really that transparent? Bobby had only met him that afternoon, and if he knew enough to say that Logan had lit up like a Christmas tree...

Logan scowled. _Who the hell talks like that, anyway?_


	26. Such Raw Fury

And now for some action, here's Chapter Twenty-Six!

* * *

Logan froze in place, his sensitive ears picking up movement around the house. Footsteps. A lot of them. Too many to have been a few children up for a late night prank.

"What is it?" Bobby asked tensely.

"Shh!" Logan closed his eyes and held his breath, concentrating on any and everything he could hear. Helicopters in the distance, hurried footsteps on every floor, calm and steady pulses. And one of those pulses was _very_ close.

Logan's eyes snapped open. Bobby looked apprehensive, but was otherwise completely unaware of how serious the situation was. He was also unaware of the green dot that sat right in the middle of his forehead. Logan cursed under his breath as he sprang up from his seat, turning around. The soldier he saw held a submachine gun – a Heckler & Koch MP5, to be exact – and managed to squeeze off a round in their direction before Logan reached him.

A bullet grazed his shoulder, but he barely noticed as he grabbed the barrel of the weapon, forcing it upwards as the soldier squeezed the trigger on full auto. The ceiling and walls were peppered with bullets and Logan grabbed his trigger hand, breaking it. "You picked the wrong house, bub!"

Logan slammed the soldier's back into the counter hard, hoping that the pain would make him pass out. Bobby had sensibly ducked behind the island and the temperature in the room dropped to well below zero. Logan could see his enemy's ragged breath. He was struggling against Logan's strength, and another hard shove would probably put him out, if not snap his spine.

A high pitched shriek broke Logan's concentration, and both men shouted in surprise and pain. In terms of raw decibels, a military jet on full afterburners would have been quieter. And being that Logan's ears were much more sensitive, the sound showered his eardrums like white hot needles. Glass everywhere shattered, from the windows and sliding glass doors to the Coke bottle he'd left on the counter. His eardrums felt like they might burst at any moment and all he wanted to do was clap his hands over his ears and press until the noise faded away. His grip on the gun and the man loosened and the soldier finally broke free of his grasp, elbowing Logan in the face.

Logan let go and covered his ears as the soldier produced a knife. He might have succeeded in stabbing Logan if the shrieking hadn't stopped at that very moment. He felt a light slice across his face, but it was healing, as was his bullet graze. Logan grabbed the soldier's arm as he tried to take another stab at the mutant. Logan squeezed his arm, breaking it in at least three places. The soldier howled in pain and looked down at Logan's shoulder in horror as the wound finished healing completely.

He looked truly frightened as he looked back up into Logan's eyes, and time seemed to stop as Logan felt himself change in that instant as well. A film of red tinted his vision and he was suddenly running on adrenaline, instinct, and such raw fury that all coherent thought completely disappeared.

Wolverine's claws jumped out of his knuckles and he shoved the man hard against the fridge, stabbing him in the chest with both claws and letting out a furious cry that raised the hairs on the back of his own neck. He withdrew his claws and the man slumped to the ground, dead. Wolverine's breath was ragged as he looked back to the kitchen island, sure that Bobby had been shot in the scuffle. But the young boy's terrified eyes peaked over the counter at Wolverine, his pulse so wild that he could have been running a marathon.

"You all right?" Wolverine asked gruffly.

Any trace of adulthood that Bobby had possessed had disappeared, leaving only the face of a terrified child. Shaking terribly, Bobby simply nodded.

Wolverine gave him one curt nod. "Come on." To his credit, Bobby followed the order without question or hesitation. Wolverine looked around the corner into the hall and saw at lest four soldiers dressed in the same special ops gear. Before Bobby could peek around the corner, Wolverine shoved him back into the kitchen. "Stay here."

He moved stealthily, pushing his claws out and targeting the soldier nearest to him. His back was turned, completely unaware of Wolverine creeping up on him. Wolverine threw his hand over the man's mouth and stabbed him through the heart from behind, letting him fall to the ground with a light thud.

He moved for the next soldier and stabbed him in the chest, pinning him to the wall and letting him slump to the ground as well. He gave the other soldiers the same treatment, killing them quickly and silently as he moved down the hall. When he'd taken down all of them, Wolverine sprinted in the direction of frightened screams at top speed. Six terrified looking humans raised their guns to him and took aim, but Wolverine jumped right in the middle, surrounding himself.

They opened fire but he began slashing in every direction, and in a matter of ten seconds he was the only one left standing. Wolverine paused for a moment and pulled three darts out of his skin. He felt slightly dizzy, but the feeling disappeared with a light shake of his head. He heard quiet gasping and looked down to see the small boy who'd been watching TV earlier blinking rapidly. He too had the odd darts sticking out of his throat, and Wolverine pulled them out and tossed them aside as he picked up the child, some of his fury evaporating. He had to get this child to safety.

He picked up the mixed scents of the mutant children and found a tall, bulky man ushering the frightened children into a hidden door in the wall. Wolverine passed the unconscious boy off to the man. "Hey, take him too. He's stunned."

"I can help you," the man called in a thick Russian accent.

Wolverine shook his head, turning back. "Help them. That's an order."

The man sighed reluctantly and disappeared behind the door, and Wolverine followed his ears to where there was the most commotion; the foyer. He smelled the sweat of the humans, as well as the distinct scents of dry ice, gasoline, and peppermint. He bolted down the hall and arrived at the balcony, looking down at the three mutant children as four heavily armed soldiers burst through the doors.

With a primal scream that was more animal than human, Wolverine jumped down from the balcony and dropped onto two of the soldiers, arms stretched and claws out, knocking them to the ground. He was up on one knee in a flash and dug his claws into the legs of the other two, flinging them like over his head effortlessly. He was upright on both feet with his claws sheathed by the time they hit the floor behind him.

His vision turned from red to a dull pink as he saw Marie, and a part of Logan returned, fearing for her safety. She was certainly frightened, but not of him. It was clear that Bobby was scared, though his friend looked more amused, like he wanted a piece of the action. Logan hoped that the boy wouldn't get his wish. "Let's go."

He ran them back to the door that the Russian and the other kids had disappeared behind and Bobby seemed to realize where they were going. He reached the wall first and pushed it in. "This is it," he said excitedly as the door opened.

The two boys raced in with Marie in tow, but Logan stopped. Marie stopped as well, half her body through the threshold. "Keep going," Wolverine snapped.

"Logan!"

Wolverine leaned forward and gave her a shove, shutting the door in her face. He turned around to face the soldiers that had begun swarming the hall.

They took up their positions and began taking aim at him and Wolverine felt his temper flare once more. "You want to shoot me? Let's see who walks out of here alive! _Shoot me!_"

"Don't shoot him," someone cried out. "Not yet…" More troops filed into the hall with their guns trained on him, but last man carried nothing but an arrogant smile.

"Wolverine?" The man's voice made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and a low growl rumbled in his chest without his permission. "Well, I must admit, this is certainly the _last_ place I'd expect to find you." Wolverine tried not to let the voice get to him, but something about it was hauntingly familiar. "How long has it been? Fifteen years? You haven't changed one bit. Me, on the other hand…" He advanced on Wolverine until they were close enough to shake hands. The face didn't look familiar, but the eyes chilled Wolverine to the bone. "Well, you of all people know. Nature takes its toll."

Wolverine frowned, and curiosity began replacing his anger. This man spoke as though they knew each other. Did he know how old Logan was? Did he knew where he'd come from and how he'd lost his memory? He felt his claws slowly retract as he looked at the man in wonder.

"I didn't realize Xavier was taking in animals," the man continued. "Even animals as unique as you."

Wolverine ignored the insult. "Who are you?" he asked slowly.

The older man grinned like a Cheshire cat. "Don't you remember?" he asked sweetly.

Wolverine took a step closer. It was coming to him. It felt like something in the back of his mind was materializing that centered on this man, but before he could grab the man and demand that he stop bullshitting, a thick wall of ice separated them. Wolverine stared at it dumbly for half a second. _What the fuck…_

"No! _NO_!!" He pushed at the ice, hoping that it was a thin layer but knowing that it was probably twelve inches thick. With a few slashes of his claws, he could probably reduce the wall to ice cubes, but he turned to the teens first, glaring murderously.

Bobby's pulse rose, his friend took a step back, but Marie held him, eye to eye, with a look so stubborn that it almost made him proud. At the moment, however, the very last feeling he had was pride in her. It was a struggle not to curse at her in his fury.

"Logan," she pleaded. "Come on. Let's go!"

He ignored her and watched as the old man's shadow tilted his head to the side and touched the ice wall. Wolverine raised his hand to hover over it. It had been on the tip of his tongue! _Goddammit!_

"Logan!"

"Do as you're told, Rogue," he snapped, turning back to the ice wall. "I'll be fine."

"But we won't." Wolverine froze. He knew that tone. He turned to look at her again and saw the look in her eyes. He had to go. The frightened look she wore was the same as when she'd seen him in the bar, positioned between the bartender and the drunk that tried to stab him.

Marie wasn't frightened for herself, nor was she frightened for him. She feared for the lives of the humans on the other side of Bobby's ice wall. She knew that one wrong move on their end and Logan would cut them all down with quick and deadly efficiency.

"Goddammit," Wolverine growled out loud, reluctantly stepping away from the barrier. "Go," he barked, disappearing with them into the hidden tunnel. "Keep going."


	27. To The Core

With a scowl that made all three teenagers reek of fear, Wolverine jogged down the tunnels, following Bobby. Though his own eyesight was much better in the dark, Bobby knew where they were going, and had promised to lead them to the garage.

He'd felt _so_ close to remembering who the man was, but all he could remember was his name; Stryker. He growled in frustration as he pushed against his mental barriers to no avail. The teens all seemed to misinterpret the source of his frustration and picked up the pace.

Bobby skidded to a halt and felt around the wall for a knob that Wolverine could see as clear as day. He pushed past Bobby and opened the door, looking around. As promised, they were in the garage, surrounded by a variety of cars. Wolverine pointed to the closest car – a deep blue sports car – and everyone raced to it. "All right, get in," he commanded.

"I'm driving," Bobby's friend said, opening the driver's door.

"In your dreams, smartass," Wolverine said, shoving him into the back seat. "Maybe next time."

All the doors were closed and Wolverine quickly contemplated how he might hotwire the car. "This is Cyclops' car," Bobby said.

"Oh, yeah?" That sealed the car's fate. He popped his middle claw out, shoving it into the ignition. As he twisted the wires together and got a spark, the beast began to ebb away. Logan smirked at the thought of the look Scott might have if he were to see him hotwire one of his precious cars so crudely.

Marie reached up and hit a button to open the garage doors and Logan floored it for a good fifteen minutes, taking the corners at nearly eighty miles an hour. The three teens sat in silence, clinging to their seats as though their lives depended on it. Marie especially, who wore a thin nightgown with no sleeves, had a lot of flesh exposed and was huddled as close to the door as possible. She seemed to be avoiding looking at Logan at all costs.

"What the hell _was_ that back there?" Now that Logan had calmed down some, he noticed that Bobby's friend had an Australian accent, and remembered Xavier's story about the boy that Ororo was so fond of that she'd found in Australia. This had to be that boy.

_Didn't he do some fancy fire trick behind his back for Marie?_ Being that he smelled like gasoline, it seemed probable.

"Stryker," Logan said flatly. "His name is Stryker."

Marie swallowed. "Who is he?"

Logan grit his teeth. He wanted to be angry with Marie for pulling him away from a connection to his past, but he was unable to. The animal inside him – as Stryker had called it – had been the one that was mad at Marie, and that fury had disappeared miles ago. The tension in his jaw relaxed. Yes, he was a little angry with her too, but what good would it do to stay that way? "I can't remember," he confessed to her alone, staring hard at the road.

She seemed to take this as a sign that she was forgiven and pulled something off of her wrist. "Here. This is yours." Careful not to touch him, she placed his dog tag in his hand before recoiling back to her side of the car.

Logan heard an annoyed huff behind him and looked in the rear view mirror. Bobby was glaring at the back of his head hatefully, and he felt the air around them get considerably colder.

"Relax, Bobby," Marie said boredly. "It's a dog tag, not a promise ring."

The Australian boy laughed at Bobby's expense and Bobby simply turned his scowl to the window, frosting the glass. "Seriously," the Australian said, "you can't be jealous of everyone she's friends with."

"How's that crush on Jubilee working out for you, John," Bobby spat back. "You still friends with Peter after he helped her rearrange the furniture in her room?"

John! Now that he had a name, he remembered that it was indeed the boy from Ororo's class.

"Look here, ice pick…" John started.

"Everyone shut up," Logan barked. "Let's get something straight right now; I'm not your baby sitter. I may feel like I have a responsibility to take care of you two, but if the urge to throw you in the traffic is stronger, I might not ignore it."

"You don't have a responsibility to take care of Rogue too?" John asked with a bit of a sneer.

_Definitely_ the boy that had talked back to Ororo. Ororo's sharp comments hadn't seemed to faze John boy at all. In fact, he'd almost seemed to enjoy the attention, and Logan got the feeling that his own words would have the same effect on John.

He remembered Xavier explaining that John had been a terror before coming to the school, but John seemed more or less harmless. He had a sharp tongue, and didn't seem to know when to shut his mouth, but Logan would admit that he'd been guilty of that on more than one occasion.

But what did he really know about John? He'd only known the boy for half an hour. Underneath his exterior was perhaps a temper as wild and violent as Logan's more feral half. Not that he couldn't deal with such a temper…

"She can take care of herself," Logan said with some pride. "And I haven't heard her bicker or bitch once the entire time we've been in the car. Her stock is up a lot more than yours is right now, pal."

"Whatever," the Australian mumbled.

The car was silent for a few more minutes before Marie sighed heavily and turned to Logan. "Tell me what's been going on with you the past few weeks," she said quietly, rolling her window down. "I need a distraction."

"From what?" Though Logan was sure he already knew the answer.

She shivered despite the heat in the car, courtesy of John's mood. "The images," she said flatly.

Just as he'd expected. He couldn't blame her for not wanting to think about it the sight of him killing soldiers as easily as he might shift gears. Truthfully, he didn't want to think too much about it either. He couldn't remember ever being so violent and bloodthirsty. "Nothing quite as exciting as tonight," he said with bitter amusement. "How about you?"

"Nothing quite as exciting as tonight," she agreed, looking out the window. "In addition to classes, I have to meet with Xavier once a week for meditation and things like that. He thinks that if I could learn to control specific parts of my mind a little better than maybe I might be able to touch people without hurting them or leeching their powers."

"Impressive."

"I guess so, but I haven't gotten it down yet. Right now it just feels like a whole lot of thinking and no results whatsoever. I told him it wasn't working and he started rambling about the intricacy of the mind and comparing it to catacombs or something like that…"

"I can only imagine," he said with a smirk. "If it makes you feel any better, my mind was compared to a beehive."

She chuckled. Logan didn't care that his tone was condescending. Xavier wanted Logan to dream his memory back and Marie to meditate her powers away. There was probably much more to his method than that rough summery, but Logan was still a little angry with Xavier's unwillingness to truly help him. If he could link his mind to every person on the planet – mutant or human – then how hard could it be to recover a few memories for one person?

Logan suddenly heard heavy breathing right next to his ear and caught a strong gasoline scent as John pushed his torso to the front of the car and reached for the center controls. Logan felt his lip curl up in impatience. "What the hell is your problem now?"

"I don't do uncomfortable silences," he declared, pushing a button.

The speakers roared to life, and while the sound system was superb, the music was anything but. _"It ain't no lie, baby, bye, bye, bye!"_

Logan cringed in disgust and saw Marie and John do the same out of the corner of his eye. John pushed another button and the song stopped, only to be replaced by another.

"_Hit me, baby, one more time!"_

"Are you sure this is Cyclops' car?" Marie asked with a laugh.

"Positive," Logan said with a scowl. He knew for a fact that it was Scott's car because any other car would have controls simple enough for even John to understand. But, being that Scott was such a gear head, the car had been customized so that only he could work it without difficulty. The controls weren't even marked. "I'll bet the operator's manual is the size of a Manhattan phone book."

Logan's ears were still tender from the horrifying screech that had echoed through the house, and the buttons John was hitting were only increasing the volume and Logan's headache. If the next button John pressed didn't yield better results, he'd end it with a swipe of his claws.

Primitive? Maybe. But also effective.

Marie slapped John's hand away and pressed yet another button, and this time the music cut out completely and the radio disappeared. A tray popped into view, revealing an oval shaped disk about as small was a computer mouse. "I don't think that's the CD player," John commented, snatching it off the tray and examining it closely. Logan watched him push the sides and the object extended slightly, beeping at him. "Sweet."

Logan snatched it from the teen and gently elbowed him to the back seat, where he belonged. He examined the odd device and hoped he was right in guessing that it was some sort of cell phone. But there were no buttons to be seen, and Logan was sure that he wasn't the most tech savvy person in the car.

With a huff, John plopped back into his seat and began drumming his arm rest impatiently. "So, where are we headed?"

"Storm and Jean are in Boston," he said briskly, hoping to shut the child up. "We'll head that way."

"My parents live in Boston." That had come from Bobby, and he didn't sound the least bit happy about it.

At the moment, Logan didn't really care. "Good." That meant a place to stay until they could figure out what the hell was going on.

He heard a quiet gasp from Marie and glanced in her direction. Much like the day they'd first met, she was staring at his knuckles, her expression troubled. Logan glanced down in shame before realizing exactly what she was looking at; there was blood caked on his hands from the soldiers he'd taken down. He wiped it off on his pants and continued staring at the road.

"Don't worry," he said quietly. "It isn't mine."

"I know."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Marie looking at him. In her eyes was sympathy that he hadn't expected to find. It was almost as though she knew that killing the soldiers had bothered him. Yes, he'd acted to defend the children. Yes, he probably could have stopped the soldiers that he'd encountered without killing him. But he'd had to think quickly, and had resorted to what he did best. Unfortunately, what he did best wasn't so nice.

Marie reached out and patted Logan's knee, still looking out the window. "And I understand," she assured him, tapping her temple for emphasis. "You're not an animal. You're human to the core."

He nodded to her and she settled into her seat with a satisfied nod. Within minutes, her breathing and her pulse had taken up steady rhythms and Bobby was snoring quietly in the back too. Only he and John were still awake. He was clicking something in his hands to a steady beat, perhaps a song in his head? It was soothing and annoying at the same time, though after a while it just became annoying. "Is that necessary?"

"We could play twenty questions," John returned boredly.

Logan rolled his eyes, realizing his mistake; he'd finally gotten the boy to shut up, only to invite him into conversation again. Much like he had with Marie.

_Fantastic._


	28. Pretending To Listen

Ororo is coming soon, I PROMISE! I know everyone is getting a little antsy, as am I. The drama that you are about to read is a result of my own impatience to get to some RoLo goodness. Damn those script writers for keeping her away from Logan for more than half the movie! Enjoy!

* * *

"So, Wolverine," John began, piercing the silence yet again. "You've been in a lot of near death situations. Or at least, that's what the rumor mill reports. So what's worse: freezing to death or burning to death?"

Logan glanced at the time, rolling his eyes and resisting the urge to let out an annoyed sigh. Bobby and Marie had fallen asleep about two hours ago but, for whatever reason, John was still wide awake. He also happened to be unusually chatty for a boy of approximately seventeen. Logan really preferred the silence to John's twenty-one questions, but in the back of his mind Logan knew that John was throwing out any question that came to mind because the silence was truly bothering him. He wondered how silence could bother a person so much, but dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. John might just as easily wonder how the thought of falling could bother Logan so much.

Logan leaned back in his seat. "While being burned is quite agonizing, freezing lasts a lot longer. But I wouldn't really know about freezing or burning 'to death,' as I'd have I actually die to get the full benefit of the experience. Obviously, I haven't died yet."

John was silent in the back, and Logan blessed the silence until he heard John's heart begin to beat faster. He frowned, not wanting to be concerned about the boy but finding that he couldn't help it. He tried not to grumble out loud. _Damn kids._ "You all right?"

"Is it really that bad," he asked in a haunted tone. "Burning, I mean?"

Logan frowned. Despite whatever was bothering John, he had no reason to lie to him. "It is painful, yes," he said carefully. "Why?"

"My mother burned to death," he said shortly.

Logan sighed quietly. "Do you want to talk about it or something?"

"No," he said defensively. "I don't need you to get all Ward Cleaver on me and offer up a therapy session."

"I didn't offer you a therapy session, brat," Logan snapped back. "I offered to pretend to listen if you wanted to talk."

"Well, gosh and golly, I can't thank you enough, pops."

Logan ground his teeth. If Xavier had been telling the truth - and there had been no reason for him to lie - then Ororo loved this boy for some reason or another, and killing him was not the way to go about getting on her good side. "You're the one that brought it up," he said stiffly. "If you didn't want to talk about it then maybe you should have kept your mouth shut. In fact, why don't you just keep your mouth shut regardless of the reason."

"Talking about traumatic events doesn't make the memories of them any easier to endure," he muttered. Something in John's tone sounded much older. Although the youth had said that he didn't want to talk about it, Logan got the feeling that some small part of him did want to talk about his mother. Just not with Logan.

He stayed silent and let John continue. "Xavier seems to think that talking will make it easier, and so does Storm. I couldn't explain why, even if I wanted to. She tries just as hard as I do to forget her past."

Logan was instantly on the alert. "Storm had a rough past?" he asked carefully.

"Her father was killed in a plane crash, her mother died in a building collapse, she was trapped under the rubble with her mother's dead body for about two days, she had to live on the streets and resort to stealing to survive when she was only nine… Why don't you tell me?"

"How did she end up at Xavier's?" By the time Logan realized what he'd just asked, the words had already left his lips.

Thankfully, John didn't seem to care, though he wondered why John was giving up all this information so willingly. Part of him knew he should change the subject because this was something of an invasion of her privacy. The other part – the bigger and less rational part of him – reasoned that she couldn't read minds, and thus wouldn't know that John had given him all of this information.

It was worth the risk, and it wasn't as though she could blame Logan for asking. Though, as tactful as she was, she might find a way.

"As far as I know, Professor X went to Africa to pick her up from a tribe that was worshiping her as a goddess. She came here and he taught her how to better control her powers. Cyclops helped her a lot too and she even had a thing for him, believe it or not. But, in the end, she accepted that Cyclops and Jean were too sappy for each other to ever be apart. Good thing, too. He's a total stiff and Ororo would eat him alive, if you ask me. She'd be a fool to think that he'd be able to handle her short temper."

Logan smirked at the thought of Scott being manhandled by Ororo, but it disappeared quickly when he realized _why_ she might be doing that. "She had a thing for _who?_"

"Yeah, you heard right. He's a good guy and all, I guess, but he needs to loosen up. Lately he's been really tense. Dr. Grey has too, actually. Storm said she's been having nightmares so bad that their bedroom shakes."

"Nightmares of what?"

"Don't know. Dr. Grey won't tell Storm about them. Won't tell anyone, as far as I know."

Perhaps that explained why her scent was stronger. She hadn't been able to keep a hold on him when Ororo had flown him up to the Statue of Liberty. Her telepathic ability seemed more developed than her telekinesis, which could explain why she could read his mind with relative ease but had to strain herself to move things. She'd closed the closet doors behind him but, looking back, perhaps that glare she'd given him had been a look of concentration. They must be terrible nightmares indeed if she could shake an entire bedroom in her sleep.

"Anyway," John said, Logan's thoughtful silence seemingly bothering him, "Scott may be a stiff and all, but I can't understand how Storm can still invite T'Challa to come visit her. Given the choice between them, I'd pick Cyclops every time."

Logan tried to keep the eagerness from his voice. "Who's T'Challa?"

"You wouldn't know him, I don't think. He's not with the X-Men. His codename is Black Panther and he works alone somewhere in Africa. He drops in every now and then to visit Storm and she lets him because they used to be friends."

"Used to be?"

"They grew up together. Storm won't really talk about it with anyone, but I guess they used to be together and he left her. That's around the time that Xavier recruited her and she came here. She didn't talk to T'Challa for the longest time, but he started showing up out of the blue last year, and every few weeks he comes to visit her. She goes out to lunch with him or something and then he leaves. For the longest time, I thought she couldn't stand the sight of him, but I must have missed something because he even asked her to marry him two weeks ago. Do you have to take the corners so sharp?"

"Oh." Logan didn't bother to apologize as he eased off of the gas. He'd accelerated to about eighty miles per hour without even realizing it. His head was spinning. He'd been pining after this woman for nearly six weeks, and in the space of five minutes, he'd learned that she'd had a crush on Scott – which wasn't a capital offense, though it was a little strange – and she was in a relationship with some man that he didn't even know. Was _engaged_ to some man he didn't even know!

Logan knew that he shouldn't feel so possessive of her, especially now. He hardly knew her, technically speaking. She'd had a life before Logan had crashed into her world, and there was no reason for her not to continue as she had before simply because Logan was there too. Perhaps he'd worked himself up over that dream about saving her. Or maybe he'd read too much into their flirting and assumed that she must feel the same. It was too late to pinpoint where his affection towards her had truly come from, and now he felt like an idiot for assuming that she'd felt something between them too.

"You okay, Wolverine?"

"Fine. I just didn't really know any of these things about Oro – " He cleared his throat. "Storm. It's like I don't even know her."

"Aren't you two really close or something?"

Logan's grip on the wheel tightened as he thought back to Bobby's observation of his reaction to Ororo and then Jean. "What gave you that impression?"

"She talks about you often enough," he said easily. "I even thought that she liked you, the way Storm and Jean talked…" The back seat was silent again and Logan looked in the rear view mirror. John had paled considerably, and the temperature in the car was slowly dropping. "I don't suppose I could persuade you to pretend that you didn't hear any of that. You know, like you said when I called you Ward Cleaver?"

Logan smirked. Perhaps now John would learn the value of thinking before he spoke. "Was I not supposed to hear any of that?" he asked casually.

John raked his fingers through his hair. "Not from me! She talks about you with Jean often enough so I thought you two were good friends or something. Mother_fuck!_"

Logan rolled his eyes. "Go ahead and pretend that you didn't tell me anything. I was hardly paying attention anyway."

"Right. I'll believe that when Elvis rises from the grave."

"Or, I could tell her everything you told me verbatim the second I see her."

"No need to cosign my death certificate."

Marie grumbled angry nonsense under her breath as she pushed a few buttons on the console. The radio began playing some pop song and Marie adjusted the volume to low, flopping back into her seat tiredly. "Shut up," she mumbled, rubbing her bare arms.

John grumbled in the backseat and Bobby continued snoring. Logan hesitated before fooling with the knobs to find something a little more mellow to listen to. He finally settled on alternative rock and, to his surprise, John gave a contented sigh.

"You're my hero, pops," John muttered.

"No one cares," Marie whined tiredly.

Logan would have chuckled. He would have thought that Bobby's snores were going to make it next to impossible for Marie to sleep peacefully. He would have told John to stop calling him 'pops.'

But all he could think of were John's words, which were sure to bother him for a while. _"I thought she couldn't stand the sight of him, but I must have missed something because he even asked her to marry him two weeks ago."_

John certainly wasn't the only one who had missed something.


	29. Bobby Drake's House

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I was waiting at the door of the local Wal-Mart at exactly 7:00AM on Tuesday. I rushed in to get my copy of X-Men Origins, walked out the door so fast that more than one person thought I was stealing it, and raced home at speeds that you normally witness while watching a good episode of World's Wildest Police Chases!

First thing I watched? Storm's deleted scene! Unfortunately, I found myself a little disappointed in the scene and a glad that they left it out of the movie. It seems odd that she wouldn't be one of the mutants in Stryker's collection. True, Deadpool - LOVE Ryan Reynolds! - didn't have any powers that pertained to the manipulation of weather, but if she was in the village with them then why wouldn't Stryker snatch up someone with such a rare talent? Sometimes I wish those script writers weren't too proud to just call me for some plot tips! Eh, whatev. I like mine better!

Okay, to be honest, I rolled out of bed at noon and drove to Wal-Mart at a reasonable pace. I took my sweet time in the store and meandered out half an hour later with the movie, - obviously - a Sookie Stackhouse book and a half eaten Snickers. When I got home, I fed my dogs, mowed the lawn, watched Star Trek and THEN I watched Storm's scene...

What can I say? I'm human. Enjoy Chapter 29!

* * *

Bobby and Marie finally woke around six in the morning. By then, Logan had abandoned back roads for the interstate, as the best place to hide now would be in plain sight. For once, he was thankful for Scott's taste. He'd opted for electric blue, which stuck out less than other outrageous colors like canary yellow or Ferrari scarlet. To the casual eye, it seemed like any other generic sports car. If he stayed with the flow of morning rush hour traffic, they weren't going to run into any problems.

As far as Logan figured, they'd left the mansion with a full tank of gas, and he hadn't stopped anywhere along the way. He knew his clothes had blood on them, the teens were all in their pajamas... Stopping anywhere was asking for trouble.

The problem with that was, despite being almost adults, none of the three teens were at all shy about letting Logan know how cranky they were getting. Bobby was hungry, Marie needed to use the bathroom, and John had expressed, more than once, that he was a horrid combination of the two.

Around ten, Bobby seemed to recognize where they were and began directing Logan to his house. They pulled into the driveway of an average, middle-American home at about eleven o'clock, and the teens dashed out of the car and to the front steps of the house. Logan would have preferred putting the car in the garage, just in case, but it was locked. He'd just have to hope that the car being exposed wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass.

The house seemed empty from the outside, but that didn't mean much on a Sunday morning. They could be at church just as easily as they could be sleeping in. With a rapidly beating heart, Bobby knocked on the door several times before pulling a hidden key out of a potted plant next to the door.

"Handy," John said. He hadn't slept a wink the entire night, and seemed just as alert as if he'd gotten a good night's sleep. Though Logan was just as alert, his mind was so tired that it was practically screaming. He allowed himself a second of envy - damn kids could stay up (or sleep) for days at a time - before returning to full alert mode, scanning the house for pulses.

"I always used to forget my keys in my room or in my locker at school," Bobby said. "Once I had to make one out of ice." Bobby opened the door and looked around. "Mom? Dad? Ronny? Anybody home?" Logan could have told him that no one was in the house, but he felt the boy's pulse return to a normal rhythm before he could open his mouth. A sigh of relief escaped Bobby as he dropped the key onto a nearby table. "Looks like we've got the place to ourselves. Still, maybe I should call – "

"No," Logan said shortly. "You never know who might be listening in."

"What, you're saying they tapped my parents' phones?"

"Those troops were serious, and they were good. I'm saying that we need to be careful."

Bobby nodded without another question. "I'll try to find you some clothes," he said to Marie. He turned to John and smirked at the shorter teen. "I'll see if my brother has anything for you."

"Real cute," John sneered, flicking his lighter cap open and shut over and over as he looked around.

"Don't burn anything."

"I'll do my best," John sneered back. Bobby flipped him the bird and the Australian responded in kind.

Logan rolled his eyes at the adolescents and decided to explore the house. He made his way to the kitchen when he heard the odd cell phone in his pocket beep once. He pulled it out and examined it, pushing the sides to extend it as John had the night before. All he got was static.

He held it to his ear and tried anyway. Maybe it was voice activated? "Hello?" Nothing. He tapped it against the counter and tried again, ignoring how stupid he felt for thinking that hitting the device would make it work better. "Hello? Jean? You're supposed to be a telepath, woman! Storm…"

He hadn't meant to utter _her_ name. He was desperate to know what the hell was going on, and saying her name had been a slip of the tongue. Silence on the line and in his mind meant that no one had heard it, and he quickly shoved the phone back in his pocket, mildly thankful that no one had answered.

He stood alone in the kitchen, awkwardly looking around before shaking off the feeling that he was being watched and opening the fridge. He saw juices, power drinks, and a Miller Genuine Draft. Not his favorite, but he'd take what he could get. Popping the cap off, he drained half the bottle in one extended swallow.

He heard the annoying _click, snap_ of John's lighter from the hall, and looked around the corner to tell him to knock it off. But something about what he saw stilled him. Despite the fact that Logan was clearly in John's peripheral vision, John's attention was wholly focused on the numerous family pictures that hung on the wall. He wore an envious glare as he snapped his lighter, making sure to give each picture a nasty scowl before moving on to the next. Being that John had no family – as far as Logan knew – it didn't really surprise him when he heard the boy darkly mutter, "I hate America."

Logan left John to his brooding for no reason, acting before his brain registered what was happening. He whirled around and pushed his claws out of his right fist, pointing them at a cat. Logan relaxed before he hurt the animal. He was so tense that logic and thought had taken a backseat to instincts and action. The feline gave his claws an unimpressed look before it began purring and sauntering up to him. Logan's expression softened and he retracted his claws, lightly scratching the cat's ears. _I guess I like cats,_he thought, though he wouldn't call himself a cat person, per se.

Generally, he preferred the company of animals to people. If an animal was afraid, you'd know that it was afraid. If it was angry, you'd know that it was angry and if it was shy you'd know that it was shy. People – humans and mutants alike – had a habit of being far more complicated than that.

Logan heard footfalls much too late and looked up at the backdoor as Bobby's family walked in and caught him holding a beer that wasn't his in a house that wasn't his. All three halted, their pulses rapid as they stared at Logan, or rather the bloodstains on his shirt.

"Who the hell are you?" the father asked, getting in front of his son. The mother, on the other hand, quickly got the cat and pulled it out of Logan's reach.

"Right," John muttered from the threshold, staring at the family with a bored expression. "Screw the kid. Save your cat."

Logan didn't have an immediate answer that had any chance of improving the situation, and instead pointed to Bobby, who had rushed down the stairs. His heart was pumping a mile a minute as his family focused their attention on him.

"Honey, aren't you supposed to be at school?" his mother asked.

"Bobby, who are these people?" his father demanded.

Bobby took a shaky breath and pointed to Logan. "Uh, this is… Professor Logan." He looked back at Logan as if to ask if that was acceptable, but Logan simply cocked his head to the side. _Too late for a different excuse now…_ "And that's my roommate, John. And this is Marie."

Logan glared at Bobby. He'd conveniently left out that Marie was his girlfriend. Unless, of course, they'd broken up in the five minutes that they'd been upstairs. Bobby's mother was glaring at Marie distastefully, specifically the white opera gloves she was wearing. "Bobby, what is that girl doing wearing my clothes? And… are those _Nana's_ gloves?"

"She needs them, Mom."

"What could she possibly _need_ them for?"

They all stood awkwardly, staring at each other. Bobby's pulse was the loudest in the room until it finally skipped and then slowed. He'd made a decision. "Mom, Dad? There's something I need to tell you."

After everyone properly introduced themselves, they moved into the living room while Mrs. Drake made some tea to calm her already rattled nerves. She politely asked anyone if they wanted a drink, eyeing Logan's beer pointedly. Bobby and Marie declined, and John turned up his nose as she began making her tea.

"I hardly like drinking water," John stated in a matter-of-fact tone. "Liquids taste bad enough without adding all kinds of crazy flavors."

She seemed unsure of how to respond to that and so gave John a nervous smile and continued her task in silence. Logan placed an iron grip on the back of John's neck and steered him back into the living room, ignoring how hot the boy's flesh was. When he finally let John go, his mutation was healing a first degree burn. Logan said nothing, but knew that the brat had done it on purpose.

When Bobby's mother finally joined the group, Bobby took a deep breath and began explaining Xavier's school, his friends, and their talents in lengthy detail, somehow leaving out that they were mutants. All three adults could see that he was beating around the bush, but Bobby finally came out and said that the 'gifted youngsters' weren't exactly exceptionally smart students.

Though Logan would have gone about everything differently, he couldn't deny that this was Bobby's house, his territory. Logan stood in the doorway and carefully watched Bobby's parents digest the information that they'd been given, throwing John warning glances when the awkward silence had prompted him to take out his damn lighter.

Bobby's mother was the first to speak after several long minutes of nothing but the incessant _click, snap, click, snap._ Logan found himself glaring at the lighter rather than the boy, though he was tempted to toss both out the window. "So, uh… when did you first know you were a… a…"

"A mutant?" John supplied, flicking his lighter closed for the umpteenth time.

"Would you cut that out?" she asked in an agitated voice. John struck it one last time before placing it in his pocket with a strange look. It wasn't quite a scowl, but it was close. It said something along the lines of 'You're not _my_ mother.'

"You have to understand," Mr. Drake tried, addressing Logan. "We thought Bobby was going to a school for the gifted."

"Bobby _is_ gifted," Marie said adamantly.

"We know that," Mr. Drake said carefully. "We just didn't realize he was – "

And like a light had been switched, Mr. Drake stood to his full height and began fuming down at his eldest. "Why the hell didn't you tell us, Bobby? What were you thinking? We're your parent's for God's sake! How could you keep this to yourself? How could you not trust us? How could you _lie_?"

"Dad, you don't understand!"

"Obviously!"

"Dad!"

"We still love you Bobby," his mother cut in. "It's just that this mutant problem is a little – "

Logan glared at her. Leave it to the government to strike fear into the hearts of normal people by feeding them outrageous lies and applying them to all mutants. That special ops team that had tried to take them out had certainly been something that the government put together. "_What_ mutant problem?" he asked sharply.

" … complicated," she finished lamely, looking away from Logan after a moment. Logan continued to glare at her when her husband chimed in again.

"You lied, Bobby. Xavier lied. To my face! What am I supposed to believe about him now, or this school of his? Or you?" Bobby flinched, but Logan was sure that only he had noticed it. "You show up without a word of warning or explanation, apparently without even clothes of your own to wear! What's that supposed to mean? How many other secrets are there? And what exactly are you professor of, Mr. Logan?"

Logan raised a brow and crossed his arms over his chest threateningly. "Art," he said sarcastically. He fixed Bobby's father with a look that dared him to challenge that. "And it's just Logan."

"Art, eh?" Logan glared at John. Everyone else was too absorbed in their thoughts to have heard his statement, but it was clearly something that the teen should have kept to himself. "Watercolor? Pastels?"

"The art of a ritual killing," Logan snapped in an equally low tone. "How does that grab you?" There was a pause in the otherwise steady beat of John's heart, but the room got a little hotter as John pulled his lighter back out and simply tossed it in the air, ignoring Logan.

Marie huffed impatiently. "Well, you should see what Bobby can do," she insisted. She gave him an encouraging nudge, and as his mother took a long swallow of her tea, Bobby reached forward and lightly touched a finger against the cup. Her eyes widened and when Bobby pulled his hand away, she turned the cup over and let her frozen tea fall onto the saucer. Mr. Drake gasped as well and Bobby sat up a little straighter.

"I can do a lot more than that," he said proudly.

The cat that had been walking back and forth between Logan and John for attention now raced to the coffee table and jumped up, licking the frozen treat as though it hadn't eaten anything but dry cat food in ages. John chuckled and Logan heard heavy breathing coming from the boy that sat on the other side of Bobby's mother. Slightly younger than Bobby, the boy had been brooding with his arms crossed and glaring at the fireplace since the conversation had begun. He now got up and stormed up the stairs like an angry toddler and slammed a door loudly.

"Oh, Ronny," Mrs. Drake tisked, frowning down at the cat and the frozen tea. "This is all my fault."

John seemed to be enjoying the family's dark moment much more than he should. He spoke with exaggerated patience, as though explaining the facts of life to the terminally dim-witted, yet he wore a smile bright enough to eclipse the sun. "Actually, they discovered that males are the one who carry the mutant gene and pass it on. So, technically" – he pointed to Mr. Drake with a click of his tongue – "it's his fault."

Mrs. Drake seemed very unimpressed with John's knowledge, and turned to Marie after fixing John with another hard glare. "So all of you are… gifted?"

Marie shot John a pointed look. "Some more than others," she said between clenched teeth.

John's smile faltered and the room got hotter as he and Marie stared each other down. He looked ready to say something nasty in response when a beeping noise pierced the silence. All eyes turned to Logan before he realized that the ringing was coming from his pocket. "I guess it's for me."

He pinched the sides, extending the odd phone and held it to his ear. "Jean?" He certainly hoped that it was Jean…

"Logan," Jean cried on the other end, "Thank God it's you! We couldn't reach anyone, even at the mansion."

"No one's left, Jean," he said, walking out onto the porch. "Soldiers came."

"What about the children," came Ororo's concerned voice.

God bless her, she could have told him to rot in hell and Logan still would've been happy to hear her voice. "Some of them escaped," he answered gravely. "Some big Russian guy was leading them. I'm not sure about the rest."

"Peter knows what to do. He's a good leader. We haven't been able to reach the professor or Scott either," Jean said to no one in particular.

"Where are you, Logan?" Ororo demanded.

"Boston, with Bobby Drake's family. You know it?"

"Absolutely," Ororo replied. "We're on our way."

"And Storm?" He hesitated for half a second. He wanted to tell her to be careful, the same as Scott had told Jean the day before. But they weren't that close yet. According to John, they'd never be that close. But good friends said things like that to each other, didn't they? Were they even good friends yet? Judging by how little he knew about her, the answer to that question would be no. Logan swallowed. "Make it fast," he said finally, compressing the phone and shoving it back into his pocket.


	30. Can't Stand Flying

I got so excited by this chapter and just had to put it up! So yeah, here it is. And goofball_08, I'm sorry, but I saw her deleted scene on the DVD that I got. It was the special addition, or something like that, because I know that some of the DVDs there didn't have any of the special features. I don't doubt that it'll be on youtube in a week our two though, so as soon as I see hide or hair of it I'll email you the link, if you like.

Yay, Ororo's back! Enjoy!

* * *

"We have to go," Logan announced briskly as he entered the living room.

John jumped. "What?"

"Why?" Marie echoed.

"_Now!_" After his little game of indecision while saying goodbye to Ororo, he'd spotted movement in the far trees. He wasn't sure how, but they had been found. They needed to clear out before there was any chance of the troops destroying the house. Or worse, before the troops caught them. He also wasn't sure why Stryker was gathering so many mutants, but something in the pit of his stomach told him that it was bad.

And that it wasn't the first time he'd done something like this.

"Logan, what's wrong?"

"Follow my lead." He pushed passed the teens as they dumbly stared after him. His claws popped out of his fist and Mrs. Drake yelped as Logan led the teens to the front door. As he stepped out onto the porch, he was met with the sight of three squad cars and at least six police officers aiming their guns at him. They were too late. But at least it wasn't Stryker's troops. That was a positive, wasn't it?

One of the police officers jumped out from the side, shouting loudly, "Drop the knives and put your hands in the air!"

The officer was breathing heavily and already starting to sweat. His heart was working double time and he smelled of intense fear. Logan frowned._ That's just great. A rookie._ He turned to his other side and found that a woman was on their other side. She was a little older, much calmer, and more focused that the man to his right.

"What the hell is all this?" John demanded.

"Ronny," Bobby hissed under his breath.

"Put the knives down slowly," the rookie repeated, his voice firmer. "Then down on your knees, cross your ankles, and raise your hands in the hair. You kids do the same. _Right now!_"

Somewhere inside the house a glass door was broken and Mrs. Drake cried out in fear. Logan turned to the woman officer, speaking as calmly as possible. She seemed the least excitable. "Hey, this is just a misunderstanding."

"Put the knives _down_!"

Logan turned and glared at the inexperienced cop. "I can't." He knew that this was probably a bad idea, since this cop was so jumpy, but if they had been called to the house then Ronny would have warned the police that they were up against mutants. Wouldn't he?

Bobby, Marie, and John were innocent enough looking, so perhaps all Logan had to do was pull his claws in and then they could talk like civilized people. Cops are supposed to protect and serve, right?

That sounded ridiculous even in his own mind but, if nothing else, it would distract the cops until Ororo arrived with the jet. "Look." He slowly raised his arm and pulled his claws into his hand. As he'd expected - in the back of his mind - he heard the man gasp and fire his weapon. The bullet hit his head hard and his world went black, but not before he heard Marie screech in terror and John whisper, "Fuck this."

Two seconds later, a light tick on the ground next to Logan caused his eyes to snap open. He was face down on the ground, and the bullet that had been fired at him was bent all to hell and laying on the porch. He sat up slowly, ignoring the violent throbbing of his head as best he could. Around him was absolute chaos, and knew that he'd been down for more than a few seconds. There were now five cop cars instead of only three, and all looked like they'd exploded. Half charred humans cowered in various places on the ground and Logan heard a jet engine signal the arrival of Ororo and Jean. How long had he been out?

Standing, Logan cracked his neck and tried to ignore the intense pounding of his head as he surveyed the destruction a second time. He turned to glare at John. Always playing with that damn lighter, this _had_ to be his fault. The Australian teen offered him a weak smile.

An impatient clap of thunder shook the ground and Logan shook his head, making his way to the jet. He certainly wouldn't condone John losing his temper, but after all of the excitement and pent up anger and bitterness that John had clearly been holding inside, Logan couldn't say that he was terribly surprised.

The teens raced to the jet with Logan in tow. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the overly excited cop still trying to point his gun at Logan. Logan gave him a blank stare, holding up his fist to show that there were no claws or even knives. He hadn't wanted a fight, but the officer seemed to catch the implication: You know what'll happen if a real fight starts. Is that what you want?

Fear radiated off of the officer in waves, and Logan gave him a satisfied nod. "Nice shot, rookie," he said quietly. "The bullet is on the porch."

He continued to the jet past Bobby, who was glaring up at his family. "I hope you're happy," he heard the boy whisper.

Logan got onto the jet and once again took the seat behind Ororo. He ignored the nervous, "Guten morgen," that a very blue mutant beside him offered. He was every bit as blue as Mystique, and for half a second he wondered if Mystique had a brother. When Logan didn't reply, he seemed disappointed, and Logan grudgingly admitted that he didn't need to be rude to the mutant.

"Guten tag," Logan corrected. The position of the sun suggested that it was past noon. He directed his next comment at Ororo, who was truly a sight for sore eyes, even though he could only see the back of her head. Her scent would have had a drug-like effect on him, but the ginger and cinnamon in Jean's scent were level with Ororo's rain forest scent. That was odd, but he didn't dwell on it. Now wasn't the time to internally debate the meaning of their scents.

"Who the hell is this?"

"Kurt Wagner," the blue mutant said proudly, his German accent thick. "But in the Munich Circus, I was known as 'The Incredible Nightcraw – "

"Yeah, save it," he said, hurriedly strapping himself in. He didn't have to be overly polite to this mutant either. He had nothing against Kurt, but his wasn't the voice that Logan wanted to hear at the moment. "Storm?"

"We're out of here."

The jet shook and Logan gripped his armrests tightly, momentarily abandoning the task of strapping himself in. He looked around at the others, and thankfully none of them had noticed his miniature panic attack; Bobby was brooding in the very back of the jet, Marie was trying to comfort him, John looked every bit as uncomfortable as Logan was, and Kurt sat in his chair in silence, dejectedly staring at the ground. Logan rolled his eyes, feeling guilty for giving the blue mutant the brush. He couldn't be related to Mystique in any way. Someone so sensitive wouldn't last ten minutes in Mystique's company.

"Es tut mir leid," he said gruffly, causing Kurt to turn wide, curious yellow eyes in his direction. _I'm sorry, _he'd said.

Kurt looked much brighter and happily replied, "Kein problem," with a wave of his hand. _No problem._

Logan nodded and made his way up to Jean's seat, leaning heavily on it for support. Ororo was flying the plane, and he wanted _zero_ distractions for her. "How far are we?" he asked, eyeing the controls and screens blankly.

Jean looked up at him with intense eyes. Her gaze made him decidedly uncomfortable, and as he was about to turn to Ororo and pose the same question, Jean reached up and used her thumb to wipe a smudge of blood off his forehead. She wore a strange, far off look as she stroked him again with her thumb, right over the now healed wound.

Her eyes were locked on his, and Logan found he couldn't look away. Part of him wanted to, but another part of him…

"Any word from the professor or Scott?" he blurted.

Jean blinked and pulled her hand away as though Logan had burned her. Confusion was clear in her eyes, and Logan wondered if he should ask what was wrong. He was concerned, if it happened to be something serious. But maybe he didn't want to know.

"Not a word from either of them," Ororo said stiffly.

"And how far are we again?"

"We'll actually be coming up on the mansion pretty soon," Jean replied. She seemed to be fine, and for a second Logan wondered if he'd imaged everything that had just happened. "Once Storm whistles up some cover – "

"I've got two signals approaching," Ororo said tensely. Logan looked down at the screen she was looking at and felt his heart stop. Her words echoed his thoughts. "They're coming in fast."

Accompanying her announcement, a proximity alarm sounded. The _Blackbird_ shuddered in wake turbulence as the jets – Falcons, Logan noted – shot past to announce their presence, then throttled back to pace the bigger aircraft, taking up flanking positions on either side.

They heard static and then a brisk voice. "Unidentified aircraft, this is Air Force two-one-zero on guard. You are ordered to descend to twenty thousand feet and return with our escort to Hanscom Air Force Base. You have ten seconds to comply."

Ororo's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "Wow. Somebody's angry."

"I wonder why," Logan growled. Ororo glared up at Logan, but he shrugged in defense. "Don't look at me, babe. Why don't you ask the Hot Shot back there?"

Logan heard him snort and turned in time to see Bobby give John a murderous glare. "You think that's funny? Let's set fire to _your_ house next time!"

"It's a little late for that," John replied cheerfully.

"You could have killed those cops, John!" Marie spat heatedly.

"I just got to them before Wolverine did," he scoffed, turning to Logan. "By the way, you must have a nasty headache after getting shot in the face like that."

Logan narrowed his eyes at the boy and again his arrogant smile was wiped away. "I don't have a gun anywhere within reach…" He pushed one of his claws out and raised it threateningly. "But I'm sure I can think of _something_ to shove in your head, if you'd like to know the feeling."

Part of him knew that John was probably right; if the cop hadn't laid him out then he might have torn them all apart. But he also agreed with Marie. Just because Logan had killed people the night before, that didn't mean that John had to follow suit just to be a tough guy. In fact, seeing Logan in such a rage should have encouraged John to do exactly the opposite.

"Leave him be, Logan," Ororo hissed. "I'll take care of him later."

As she finished her statement, the irate woman's voice came over the intercom again. "We are coming up alongside you to escort you to Hanscom Air Force Base. Lower your altitude _now_. Failure to comply at once will result in the use of extreme force." Logan looked between the two jets and saw the pilots pointing down for emphasis. "Repeat, lower your altitude to twenty thousand feet. This is your last warning."

The jets waited all of three seconds before disappearing from sight. "They're falling back," Ororo said softly, checking the screen to confirm. The system then began blaring and Ororo frantically shouted, "They're marking us!"

Logan's heart stopped. "What?"

"They're going to fire!"

"What's the threat?"

"Sidewinders," Jean said, pointing to the display on her side. "They're heat seekers. If we give them minimal profile with our exhaust, maybe we can lose them. Storm?"

"Hang on, everyone!"

Logan rushed to his seat but wasn't fast enough. Ororo jerked the jet roughly to the side and Logan hit a wall beside his seat before falling into it and fumbling with the buckle with wide eyes. Behind him, he heard Marie having a tough time as well but couldn't make himself move from his rooted position or even look back to see if she was okay.

"I've got to shake them," Ororo declared, rocking the jet right, then left and all the way around and upside down. Logan's heart nearly burst out of his chest and this time he couldn't stop himself from showing it outwardly. He didn't give a damn who saw.

When the jet was right-side up again, Logan didn't seem to be the only one displeased with Ororo's driving technique. "Please don't do that again," John said, sounding ill. "You know I can't stand flying."

"I agree," Logan added shakily, trying to take a deep breath. Despite his lack of effort to hide his fear, anger was the first emotion to rise to the surface for them to see. "Don't we have any damn weapons in this heap?" Ororo was a good pilot, but these were trained professionals that they were up against. They had a snowball's chance in hell of winning a dogfight against pilots at the top of their game.

"Yeah," Ororo said as the sky outside darkened. "Me."


	31. It's My Fault

Logan was unable to tear his eyes away from the scene outside. The sky was black as night, at least seven tornadoes were angrily swirling somewhere behind them, and the smell of fear was so heavy in the air that it was beginning to rub off on him. And he was already well past terrified without anyone else's help. The only calm pulse in the jet was Ororo's, and Logan tried to focus on it. He listened hard but everyone had a pulse twice as fast and the rocking of the jet broke his concentration.

He felt Jean poking at his mind and glared venomously at the back of her head. _What the hell? This can't wait?_

"_You need this more than they do,"_ she said calmly, and then he felt peace wash over him. Instead of being terrified of the tornadoes, he was fascinated by their beauty. He felt them outside, swirling angrily around each other, yet offering him protection all the while. Instead of fearing how far they might fall, he marveled at how high they were soaring above the ground. They glided effortlessly through the air, despite the wind outside. In fact, the wind was helping their progress quite a bit. He – or rather, Ororo – was in control of the weather outside, and the very air was humming with her power. The tornadoes wouldn't touch them. He was a little uncomfortable with how close everyone felt to him, but he found peace in the freeing chaos of the weather outside. He felt like it was calling to him, begging him to use the elements how he saw fit.

And then, all too soon, it was over. The sky outside brightened, the jet resumed its steady course, and Logan regained his fear of falling and flying in general. Jean turned around in her seat and looked everyone over, her gaze lingering on Logan. "Everybody okay back there?"

Logan had gained back his fear much too quickly for his taste. Though he was thankful for whatever mind trick Jean had implemented to calm him down, he felt as though he'd never been calm at all. If the beads of sweat on her brow were any indication, however, she'd used a lot of energy to help him avoid an all out panic attack.

But, to truthfully answer her question… Was everybody okay? "No," he said, clinging to the arms of his chair like a life raft.

The alarms began sounding again and Logan looked around wildly. He knew what that meant without anyone having to say it; missiles.

"Oh my God! There's two of them," Ororo said frantically. She was breathing heavily along with everyone else. He'd felt the energy flowing from her to the weather outside. It had taken a lot of power to conjure up nearly fifteen tornadoes and even more power to control them all at once, all the while maneuvering the jet to avoid being locked onto and maintaining the tailwind that had slowly pushed them ahead of the pilots. She sounded exhausted, which might have been the reasoning behind the abrupt ending of the weather.

Every pulse in the jet spiked, but Jean's pulse slowed, just as Ororo's had. The smell of cinnamon became overpowering, so much that Ororo's scent disappeared completely. Logan heard a loud explosion from somewhere behind them and nearly jumped out of his skin. Jean exhaled heavily and the ginger in her scent returned, though it still overpowered all the other scents in the jet. Logan realized that she'd just disabled one of the missiles with her telekinesis. But her telekinetic abilities weren't up to par with her telepathy. She'd worked hard to calm Logan down, and she seemed to have exhausted her power.

"There's one more," Ororo warned.

The alarms became louder.

"Jean?"

The jet smelled weakly of cinnamon, and Jean gasped when she realized that she didn't have the power to take it down. Logan's eyes widened. Had she left Logan alone, she would have been able to disable the second missile. "Oh, God…" Jean gasped.

The missile hit the back of the jet, rocking it forward violently and sending it into a nose dive straight for the ground. Logan heard Marie let out a terrified scream and turned around only to find her seat vacant. Bobby was shouting for her, reaching towards the hole that had been blown out in the jet. Logan's heart stopped.

"NO!"

Logan turned back to Jean desperately and she mirrored his look. They were all going to die because of him! This was his fault!

She shook her head adamantly, though she was broadcasting her true thoughts. She too thought that she could have destroyed the other missile if she hadn't helped him, but she'd had no way of knowing that she'd need to use so much power. And it had felt good to help him. He hadn't asked for help, and therefore it wasn't his fault.

That line of thinking did absolutely nothing to make Logan feel better. It didn't change the fact that she had helped him. It didn't change the fact that she hadn't had enough power to destroy the second missile, and it didn't change the fact that they were now plunging to their death.

Logan had survived some pretty horrific things, if his dreams had indeed been memories. He might survive the jet crashing, but it was a sure bet that no one else would, especially Marie.

Logan heard a strange _bamf_ sound once, then twice. When he looked back for the source of the noise, Kurt the German had a tight hold on Marie, who was shaking violently and whimpering. It brought Logan half a second of relief to see her back inside the jet, until he realized that they were still going to die.

The ground was getting closer every second and Logan again looked at Jean helplessly. _"I'm sorry,"_ she said. Logan simply closed his eyes tightly and turned away, hyperventilating. He didn't want to know how far they were falling or when they'd hit the ground. He didn't want to know if he'd die with them or if he'd wake up in a few days surrounded by ashes.

The rapid pulses were deafening in his ears, but over the chaos he caught a sound that didn't belong; the bending of metal. Logan looked back in astonishment as the hole in the top of the jet closed itself and the jet seemed to slow its descent. Had Jean dipped into an emergency energy supply in her panic?

"Jean?" Ororo's voice sounded as strained as Logan felt, and he glared at the back of Ororo's head. Maybe Jean wasn't quite working fast enough, but she was slowing their fall, wasn't she? At the rate they were slowing down, they might get away with a few injuries rather than death. But not if Ororo insisted on distracting her.

"It's not me," the red head cried as they came to a rough halt. Logan looked out the front window and saw that they were still a good ten or fifteen feet above the ground. Magneto was effortlessly holding the jet in the air, smiling cordially with Mystique by his side. Considering who it was that was holding them in the air, it didn't surprise Logan that no one was breathing a sigh of relief just yet.

Magneto lowered his arm and the jet slowly lowered to the ground with it. The second the aircraft touched down, Logan raced to get his straps off and bolted out of the jet without looking back. Once on solid ground, his mind was a bit clearer and Logan heard a delighted peel of laughter come from Mystique.

"Bitch," John muttered from Logan's side. Logan could easily see that he too wasn't a fan of flying, and he must have sprinted off the jet right behind Logan. His face unusually pale, John sunk to the ground and put his head between his knees, gently rocking back and forth.

Logan frowned as he looked at Mystique, confusion rising to the surface before contempt. "Didn't I kill her," he asked himself strangely. He narrowed his eyes to make sure that it was really her. He didn't know of any other shape-shifters, but Mystique couldn't be the only one in existence. She licked her lips in what she probably thought was a seductive manner. Logan, however, slumped to the ground next to John and put his head between his knees as well. He was sure he looked every bit as ridiculous as John, but it was either that or risk throwing up.

It was Mystique, alright, and she was very much alive. "Yeah, she is a bitch," he agreed. And they both fell silent while everyone else exited the jet on shaky legs.

John was able to recover much faster than Logan, though both were on their feet at the same time. John seemed to have put the ordeal behind him in a matter of ten minutes, and even seemed a little energized since he'd survived it. Logan was nowhere near that point. Every once in a while he'd step on an uneven patch of grass and become rigid while he tried to avoid staggering, and the slightest breeze was like an unpleasant electric shock. He did his best not to show how shaken he was, because he knew that he hadn't suffered the most.

Jean was laying down in one of the tents that Kurt and Ororo had helped set up. She had a massive migraine, so bad that Logan had felt his own head pulsing when he'd stepped too close to her. Marie was in anther tent, still badly shaken from flying out of the jet and almost falling to her death. Bobby, still enraged with John and also shaken on Marie's behalf, seemed to be offering her support.

Ororo was resting in yet another tent, strained from the chaos she'd created to out-maneuver the jets and still straining to maintain their cover while the military was still out looking for them. As far as Logan knew, she was creating a heavy thunderstorm over the pilots that had abandoned their jets. The military would be looking for the lost pilots before they worried about the X-Men. By Logan's estimate, they were at least five miles away, and Ororo would probably have a migraine equal to Jean's when she was satisfied with her results.

After Kurt and John had finished setting up the rest of the tents, Kurt had begun trailing behind Mystique, fascinated by the similarities between them. Magneto was sitting on a tree stump, twirling what looked like three bullets in the air while staring off into space, deep in thought. Jean, Marie, Bobby, and Ororo were still in their tents. And John…

Logan sniffed the air and looked around, cursing to himself. John wasn't with them anymore, which meant that he had wandered off, which meant that Logan would have to drag his ass back. Ororo, Jean and Marie were more or less out of the question, Magneto and Mystique certainly wouldn't care, it was a sure bet that Bobby hoped he was lost, and Logan didn't doubt that Kurt would get himself lost if he attempted to locate John.

Of course, even if any and all of them were willing to look for John, Logan would find him first. John's gasoline scent was imprinted in his memory, and he knew without asking that he was the best tracker out of any of them.

With a few colorful curses, he trudged into the dense forest in search of the Australian teen. If Ororo was too tired to discipline him, Logan was more than willing to step in and deliver his own brand of rough justice.


	32. It's My Power

I apologize for the delay… I got caught up in reading all those Sookie Stackhouse books and then watching the new season of TrueBlood and _then_ reading Southern Vampire fanfiction… I got _way_ carried away!

Anywho, here's Chapter 32, after a very long wait – and I had just promised someone that I update every few days! Shame on me!

Also, I'd like to state, for the record, that John is my absolute favorite of all the X-Men characters (another reason why this took so long). One of my friends expressed how very displeased he would be if I messed up "his Pyro" and I sincerely hope that I didn't.

And if I did… well, Pyro is _mine, _and this story is about Logan and Ororo, anyway.

* * *

Logan was able to locate John in a matter of minutes. After his little temper tantrum back at Bobby's house and the adrenaline rush of almost dying, his gasoline scent was thick in the air, like a trail of bread crumbs. It polluted the fresh forest air, in Logan's opinion, but John couldn't exactly help that.

"Outstanding," John declared, when he caught sight of Logan. His voice lacked enthusiasm, and his eyes were blank. Logan would have guessed that his fatigue might be catching up to him, but somehow that didn't seem right. He seemed more thoughtful or bored than anything else. "I was beginning to wonder if I'd have to send up a flare."

"Yeah, that's a _great _idea," Logan spat, crossing his arms. "Stryker is looking for us, the police are looking for us, the military is looking for us, and you want to send up a flare and tell them right where we fucking are! Brilliant."

John rolled his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. The act made him seem so much older, but Logan couldn't find it in his heart to feel sorry for the boy. Not right now. He had screwed up big time. "Relax, I was kidding…"

"This is the _worst_ possible time to kid around," Logan snapped. "What you did back there was – "

"The same damn thing that you did last night at the mansion," John snapped back, the air around them growing hot. "Admittedly, there are some differences; I'm pretty sure I didn't kill anyone, for starters…"

Logan pushed his claws out of his knuckles and grabbed a fist full of John's shirt, shoving him hard against a thick tree trunk. The wind was knocked right out of John's lungs and the air around them both got cold.

"You think setting a few cop cars on fire makes you a tough guy?" Logan growled. "Let me tell you something, John; that was a temper tantrum you threw back there. An act of rage, and yes, it's not too unlike what I did last night. But there's _no_ excuse for – "

"The _hell_ there isn't!" John had recovered his breath, and although he looked wary of Logan's claws, he sounded no less heated. "You killed those soldiers to protect the students in the school from being taken to God only knows where by God only knows who! I set the squad on fire because the police shot you without a second thought and I knew that we were next. You can't look me in the eye and tell me that they weren't considering shooting us too if we made the wrong move."

Logan ground his teeth. He'd seen the look in the eyes of a few of the officers, and they had all been on edge. The cop had done what he was trained to do: trust his instincts and take down the enemy before the enemy got the chance to take you down. Though he had an intense headache as a result of getting shot, Logan had to admit that the rookie had good reflexes and had let his instincts guide him.

Because they were mutants, they were automatically considered armed, no matter what their power might be. That made them dangerous, even for their age, and John had done a wonderful job of proving them right. "What you did doesn't make you a man," Logan said. "It makes you an animal."

"I made a mistake by letting my emotions get the best of me," John countered without missing a beat. "Ask anyone on the street and I bet they'll tell you that that's the very definition of being _human_." He stared up at Logan, his eyes intense. They were blazing, much like Ororo's did when she was angry, but Logan could have sworn that he saw streaks of orange and gold in John's eyes as the air got hot again. "No one would dare call me human if they knew what I could do. But I don't need anyone to, because I know what I am. I'm a mutant, and I'm damn proud of it. What I have isn't a gift or a curse or an illness. It's a power. It's _my_ power, and if I wasn't meant to use it then I wouldn't have it. I'm not laying down for anyone anymore. Humans can use all the weapons they want to try to take me out, but I'll be damned if I don't go down without a fight."

Logan was surprised by the passion in the youth's voice, but didn't let it show. There was something different about John, and suddenly Xavier's words rang in his head.

"_Homeless, orphaned… He'd begun using his extraordinary power to terrorize and frighten humans. He has great potential, but needs careful teaching so as not to inspire him to fall back into that pattern."_

He had no doubt that the X-Men were doing their best to impress their ideals on John, and he wondered if he had accidentally tossed all of that work to hell by losing his temper in front of him. He wasn't responsible for the way that John thought, but somehow he knew that he'd _feel_ responsible if John fell back into that pattern.

John studied Logan's face carefully while he was thinking and nodded when he seemed satisfied with what he saw. "You have those same standards for yourself," John said slowly. "When push comes to shove, you'll fight back. And why wouldn't you? You're the best there is at what you do."

"Yeah, well, what I do isn't so nice." Logan's claws were still poised at John's throat, but both of them knew that it was an empty threat. He released he boy with a rough shove and sheathed his claws just in time. He heard twigs snapping underfoot and Ororo appeared seconds later, glaring at the both of them. Her hair was sticky with sweat, her face was pale, and she had dark circles under her eyes.

She looked like absolute hell, but she stood tall and proud and Logan knew better than to mess with her despite her fatigue.

"What the hell is this," she hissed, looking between the two.

"Talking," Logan said gruffly.

"Man to man," he added. John didn't seem the least bit cautious of the danger Ororo was radiating.

Logan rolled his eyes. "Shut up, John."

Ororo cracked her knuckles, her crystal blue eyes glittering. "John, get back to the camp." Her voice left no room for debate.

And yet. "Storm…"

"_Now_, John."

"Come _on_…"

She growled and the sky darkened as her eyes turned to him. "John, I'm not playing this game with you. I'm tired and I'm irritated. Give me a reason and, so help me, I will _rock _this entire forest!" She didn't have to explain what she meant to either of them. Though Ororo was a tolerant woman, Logan knew that she had her limits, and she didn't seem to be the type that was above disciplining a child that had been warned more than once.

John huffed angrily and narrowed his eyes at Ororo, but high tailed it back to camp anyhow. When he was out of sight, Ororo turned back to Logan, her eyes blazing. "What the hell were you doing?" she repeated, turning to follow John at a slower pace. "I know I heard your claws."

"Treating him like the tough guy he thinks he is," Logan spat back, falling in step beside her. "He set five squad cars on fire and his excuse was that I killed people last night."

She blinked, pausing for half a second. "You _what_?"

Logan bit the inside of his cheek and squared his shoulders. He had nothing to be ashamed of. Or did he? True, he had been defending the children, but he could have made the effort to simply knock the soldiers out rather than take their lives. He had lost his temper with the first soldier, and the others that he had killed had paid the price. But was that an excuse? Was there _any_ excuse for killing another person?

Yes. He truly believed that, under certain circumstances, ending another life was justified. He didn't remember Lenin and Stalin in vivid detail, but he knew enough history to know that people like them deserved fates worse than death by illness. But he also knew that it wasn't necessarily his place to decide who deserved to live or die.

He shook his head. That was his burden to bear, and he'd deal with it when the time came. "Last night, when the mansion was attacked, I heard screaming. One of the soldiers came after Bobby and I lost my temper. After that, it was... red."

He wasn't sure if that made sense at all, but she nodded as though she understood. "How many people did you kill?" she asked slowly.

"Ten, maybe fifteen." He took a deep breath but didn't falter. Though he hated to admit it, John was right; he had done it in defense of the children, and he wasn't ashamed of that. What he _was _ashamed of was not being able to rein in his temper when he'd needed to. "I was in a rage, Ororo. Honestly, I lost count."

She nodded and looked him square in the eye. "And John gave that as an excuse for what he did?"

Logan frowned in confusion. "More or less. You heard what he said on the jet."

She nodded. " 'I just got to them before Wolverine did.' "

Her eyes became a glossy white and the wind picked up. She turned and stomped back to the campsite, Logan right behind her. He honestly hadn't meant to tattle on John, but he knew for a fact that the boy wouldn't offer the information freely. Or maybe he would. In less then twenty-four hours he'd certainly been full of surprises.

John was no where in site when they cleared the forest, and Ororo crossed her arms. "John, I'm going to count to three. There _will not_ be a four." Logan got the feeling that she was talking down to John simply because she was tired, but he didn't dare comment.

"There's no need to count. I'm not a seven year old." John immediately appeared and warily looked at Ororo, who looked quite fearsome. "What am I being blamed for now?"

"How many people have you killed in your life, John," she said in a low tone.

John's face paled and his jaw noticeably tightened. He dropped the act completely. "Six," he said between clenched teeth.

"And how did that feel?" she hissed. "Did it feel good? Did it make you feel like a man?"

He shifted uncomfortably, looking between Logan and Ororo with uncertain eyes. "No, it didn't."

"Do you think Logan liked killing just as many people, if not more, last night?"

"How would I know?"

Logan snorted. "You knew pretty damn well a few minutes ago, didn't you, hot shot?"

He seemed to find his confidence when addressing Logan. "Aw, put it to music!"

"Listen, you little prick…"

A clap of thunder in the distance brought all eyes to Ororo. She snapped her head in his direction. "Shut up, Logan."

He squared his shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. "No." Her face showed momentary surprise, and Logan continued before she could stop him. "This isn't just your discussion anymore. He shouldn't have thrown that in my face as an excuse to justify the bitch fit he threw today..."

"I thought I lost my temper," he sneered at Logan.

Logan growled and his claws jumped out of his fists with a loud _snikt_. "You haven't _seen_ a real temper yet."

"Care to demonstrate?"

"Love to."

Logan advanced on John and his vision began to turn pink. Ororo stepped in front of Logan and gently placed a hand on his chest. An electric shock shot up and down his spine, making him jump in surprise. He glared down at her and she glared right back. John had clearly expected Ororo to jump to his defense, or else he would have kept his mouth shut. And Ororo had been blind to see that he was manipulating her.

But Logan refused to believe that she was that naïve or gullible. A far more realistic explanation for her actions was that she felt responsible for John and wanted to discipline him in her own way. Judging by the look in her eyes, be wasn't sure if that meant an angry talk with raised voices or the ass kicking she'd promised him only minutes ago. The first seemed more likely, but Logan certainly preferred the second.

"I'll take care of this, Logan," she said, warning in her tone. "Go see how Jean is doing."

The look in her eyes promised that he'd regret it if he didn't leave the two to sort things out, but he didn't want to talk to Jean. She'd been acting so strange, and he wasn't sure why. Then again, Ororo was acting strange too, wasn't she? Was anyone here sane aside from himself and Marie?

He hesitated before he glared one last time at the youth and left in search of Jean's tent. He wasn't even out of sight when he heard John mutter, "I like him better." Logan scowled when the comment reached his ears, but it soon became a thoughtful frown. Who did John prefer Logan to? Certainly not Ororo. Had he meant that he preferred Logan to T'Challa?

He sighed. He'd heard enough about that damn T'Challa in the past twenty-four hours to last him a few lifetimes. He'd be perfectly content to never hear that name again, but he knew in the pit of his stomach that that was wishful thinking.


	33. So, Who's Stryker

Well, it's back to business for the X-Men. At least, for this chapter. And thank you for not hating me for the delay. I felt so bad about taking forever and a day that I've been working on the next seven chapters almost nonstop. The plot will thicken next chapter! Until then, enjoy!

* * *

When Logan found Jean still sleeping peacefully in her tent, he sat down in the corner and simply watched her, his mind far away. He hated to admit it, but he was jealous that she could sleep so easily. His head was pounding too, from more than the bullet he'd taken earlier. But he knew that it wasn't her fault that she could sleep peacefully. Nor was it necessarily his fault that he _couldn't_ sleep at all.

He wasn't sure how long he sat in Jean's tent, staring at her without really seeing her, but when she finally began to stir, he snapped out of his daze and realized that it was dark outside. He cleared his throat for her benefit, knowing that her night vision wasn't as good as his.

Jean didn't start or even seem particularly surprised to see him there. She gave him a tired smile and he smiled back. "Feeling any better?" he asked.

"Much better, thank you," she replied, stretching widely. "How about you? Did I hear right when I heard John say that you got shot today?"

Logan tapped his forehead loud enough for her to hear. He didn't wince, but he certainly wanted to. "Adamantium, if I remember correctly."

"Indestructible," she said with a nod of her head, but she still looked concerned.

"I had a bit of a headache, but it passed," he said with a shrug. It hadn't passed completely, but there was nothing wrong with a little white lie. She shouldn't have to waste time worrying about him when he'd heal.

She stifled a yawn as she stretched again. "I promise I'll be out to help with the jet in a few minutes."

"No rush. You're entitled to be a little lazy."

"Any other time I'd be inclined to agree with you, but we have a lot of work to do that isn't going to get done by itself." She slowly pushed herself up to her feet, waving off Logan's offered hand to help. "Not to mention we need to keep a close eye on Magneto and Mystique. I don't care how honorable their intentions may seem, Magneto always has an ulterior motive."

"I believe that," Logan replied with a nod. The attack on the mansion, and the fiasco at Bobby's house had put all of his combat instincts on high alert. Perhaps Ororo had been right to pull him out of the conversation that she was having with John. Logan was beginning to feel a little too tense and, if he didn't find an alternative outlet, John might find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As if to prove how tense he truly was, a loud noise outside the tent made Logan start and pop his claws out. Kurt stuck his head in with a wide and innocent smile until he saw Logan's claws. Logan quickly sheathed them and Kurt eyed Logan's bare knuckles for a moment before he turned to Jean. "Pardon my intrusion, and I apologize for scaring you, but they are looking for the two of you outside," he said. "They told me to fetch you since I can teleport."

"By 'they,' you must mean Mystique," Jean said distastefully.

"Ja. Magneto has something he wishes to discuss. He says this is why he saved us earlier."

Jean and Logan traded a knowing look. As she'd predicted, Magneto wanted something in return for saving them. Logan couldn't say he was surprised.

"Do I need to be there as well?" Kurt asked hopefully.

"I don't think so," Jean said with a kind smile. "But thank you."

"Bitte shone," he replied cheerfully. With a loud _bamf_, he was gone and Logan and Jean were once again alone.

She sighed and followed Logan outside and in between the various tents to the roaring campfire that was more or less out of earshot of the children. If he had to guess, the campfire was for psychological comfort, because the interior of the jet could provide better light, and the night was already plenty warm.

While Magneto and Mystique relaxed on one side of the bon fire that John had probably made, Ororo was crouched low on the ground, hugging her knees and watching the flames. She looked much more at peace than she had a few hours ago, and Logan suspected that her talk with John had gone well. The color had returned to her face, she looked as though she had combed her hair, and she was no longer in her uniform, but in loose jeans, a t-shirt and a jacket.

She didn't smell of sweat, but rather of her own potent scent. There was no way in hell that a shower was available on the jet, which meant that she had either bathed in a river or showered in rain that she'd created…

Logan swallowed, hoping that his... intrigue wouldn't become apparent to anyone else. Where the hell had those thoughts come from, anyway? Why was he feeling frisky when the general feeling in the air was so somber? It had to be the woods… the way the light from the fire danced across her face and snow white hair, the way her rainforest scent mingled with the scent of the dry woods…

He mentally shook his thoughts away, deciding to focus on Mystique's scent. He wasn't sure if anything could have cured him faster. Her blueberry scent, in addition to the leer she gave him, killed his libido in a matter of seconds.

Good thing too, because he lost her scent as quickly as he'd caught it. As Logan and Jean stood tall on either side of Ororo, cinnamon, ginger, and rainforest swirled in his lungs, as though battling for dominance. He ignored it as best he could, crossing his arms and carefully paying attention to their foes.

"All right," Jean said finally. "Start talking."

"Our adversary," Magneto began gravely, "Is Colonel William Stryker. And he invaded your mansion for one purpose: he wanted Cerebro, or enough of it to build one of his own."

"That doesn't make any sense," Jean interrupted with a frown. "Stryker is a human. He would need the professor to operate it."

"Which, I think, is the only reason why my old friend is still alive," Magneto said with a humorless smile.

Logan blinked, suddenly remembering that through all of this, Xavier had been missing. He'd said that he was going to visit Magneto, but it seemed that he'd been intercepted by Stryker. Was Scott with Stryker too? There was a significant silence, and Ororo finally gasped. "Oh my god," she whispered.

Logan frowned, waiting for her to continue, but instead she traded a grave look with Jean, who looked between Magneto and Mystique before turning to Logan. He looked to Ororo, who wore a matching expression. He didn't get it, but everyone else seemed to. "What are you all so afraid of?"

Magneto gave him a cynical look, one that clearly said 'shouldn't that be obvious, child?' "While Cerebro is working, Charles' mind is connected to every living person on the planet. If he were forced to concentrate hard enough on a particular group – let's say, mutants, for example – he could kill us all!"

"Wait a minute." Ororo stood to her full height and took a step towards Magneto, her eyes narrowed. "How would Stryker even know where to find Cerebro in the first place?"

Magneto's expression became rather sober, even guilty. "Because I told him." Ororo shook her head in disgust and Logan heard her grind her teeth as well. "I helped Charles build it, remember," he continued. "Mr. Stryker has powerful methods of… persuasion. Effective even against a mutant as strong as Charles. And make no mistake, if Stryker has Charles, he'll find a way to break him. If he weren't absolutely certain of that fact, he wouldn't have acted."

Logan frowned. That wasn't the least bit comforting. "So who is this Stryker, anyway?" Jean asked. Logan listened carefully. Perhaps some of the things that Magneto knew about Stryker would jog Logan's memory.

"He's a military scientist," Magneto supplied. "He spent his professional life trying to solve what he considers to be 'the mutant problem.' If you want a more intimate perspective, why don't you ask Wolverine?"

"His name is Logan," Jean said, coming too quickly and too sharply to Logan's defense. Mystique gave her an amused smile, while Logan and Ororo looked at her strangely. Jean shook her head as though to rid herself of her thoughts and turned to Logan. "So? Who's Stryker?"

Logan let out a disappointed sigh. He couldn't really say that he was surprised that all eyes had, again, been turned to him for information that he didn't have. "You don't remember, do you," Magneto asked with a hint of amusement. "What a pity."

Logan felt his lip curl up. "Does it _look_ like I fucking remember," he growled.

Magneto seemed unfazed. "William Stryker is the only other man I know who can manipulate adamantium; the metal on your bones. It carries his signature."

Logan didn't bother trying to decipher the meaning behind a 'signature' that marked him as Stryker's work. He felt like his head was spinning. How was it that he was getting these important facts about his past from the enemy? If Magneto knew such things, then why the hell hadn't Xavier divulged any of this information? He was supposed to be the mind reader. Logan shook his head. It had to be a trick. "The professor told me – "

"The professor trusted that you were smart enough to discover this on your own," Magneto said with a superior smirk. "He gives you _much _more credit than I do."

"So he already knows all this?"

Magneto inclined his head, very much the civilized man addressing an ignorant child. "He _always_ knew."

Ororo cut in, placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder as she glared at Magneto. "I'm sure you'll understand if we don't take you at your word purely on good faith," she said icily. "You went to some trouble to save us, for which we're… appropriately grateful. But we're not stupid. You need us for something, so what is it?"

Magneto smirked at her, as though a student had just asked an excellent question. "Mystique has discovered plans of a base that Stryker's been operating out of for decades. We know that that's where he's building the second Cerebro, but we don't know where this base is. I believe that one of you might."

"The professor already tried reading my mind," Logan said with a bitter scowl. "But I suppose you already know more about what he saw than I do…"

Magneto rolled his eyes with a delighted smile. "Once again, you think it's all about _you_." His eyes were still up and Logan followed his gaze to see Kurt hanging upside down in a tree above them. Logan frowned, wondering how he hadn't noticed the blue mutant.

Ororo and Jean's scents were powerful enough to drown out anything else, so he couldn't have caught his scent – though, to be honest, he didn't yet know what Kurt's scent was. At the very least, he should have heard the mutant teleport into the tree above Magneto's head, but he'd been so engrossed in the conversation that he'd been thinking of nothing else. Or maybe he should have seen him, as his color didn't exactly blend in with the tree he was hanging from.

_Coulda, shoulda, woulda, _he thought, mentally shaking his head. He hadn't noticed, and that was that. Both Ororo and Jean seemed to trust him, he'd saved Marie's life, and he gave an air of overall harmlessness, if not a little mischief. If Kurt were truly a threat, Logan believed that he would have picked up on the presence of the other mutant.

"Oh… hello," Kurt said with a timid expression.

There was a long, awkward pause before Kurt gave a nervous laugh and disappeared, reappearing in front of Ororo. A wave of sulfur hit Logan's nose and he stopped breathing entirely to avoid gagging.

Kurt hung his head in sorrow. "Es tut mir leid. I didn't mean to snoop. I was just curious…"

Ororo shook her head and placed an arm around him, much to Logan's surprise. When had they become so friendly? "It's okay, Kurt. We actually need your help right now."

"My help?" he asked excitedly, stepping closer to Ororo and causing Logan's heart to thump uncomfortably.

_What should I care,_ he demanded. She didn't belong to Kurt! _She doesn't belong to me either,_ he reminded himself.

"_I am not a piece of meat, and I will not be looked upon as such!"_

He had a hard time believing that anyone would get away with claiming her as property, as it should be. He smirked for a second before he pushed his thoughts down as far as they would go. He needed to focus right now.

"I need to read your mind," Jean said kindly, replacing Ororo's position in front of Kurt. "Try to relax."

"Will it hurt?"

She smiled. "No. You won't feel a thing." She placed her hands on either side of his head and closed her eyes. No sooner had she seemed to focus than she started blinking rapidly and shivering. Kurt gasped and pulled away from Jean. Her eyes snapped open, wide with apology. "I'm sorry! That wasn't supposed to happen."

"What happened?" Ororo asked, her voice laced with concern.

Jean shook her head. "Stryker's at Alkali Lake."

"That's where the professor sent me," Logan said, glancing at Kurt and deciding that the blue German would live. "There's nothing left."

"There's nothing left on the surface, Logan," she replied testily. It was easy to see that the strain of her powers was getting to her, despite her long nap. "The base is underground."

"What wasn't supposed to happen, Jean?" Ororo insisted, touching her friend's shoulder. Jean recoiled from the touch, and Logan swore he'd heard a quiet snap of static. Jean shakily ran her fingers through her hair, waving her friend off. "Nothing," she hissed quietly.

"Perhaps we should retire for the night," Magneto suggested boredly. "We'll gain nothing by exhausting ourselves. There'll be time enough to go over the information that you've gained while we're on route to Alkali Lake tomorrow. That is, if I'm correct in assuming that Wolverine still knows where it is."

Before Logan could give a nasty reply, Magneto left the fire pit with Mystique in tow. Jean made a hurried exit and disappeared into the jet while Ororo put herself back in front of Kurt, her eyes worried. Logan would have retreated to his own tent or possibly to the jet as well, but the sight of Ororo so close to Kurt stilled him.

He tried to shake off his suspicions, both reasonable and ridiculous. _I'm a possessive bastard watching over a woman that isn't mine,_he reminded himself as he tried to leave the scene. His steps slowed and finally stopped as he turned back to Kurt and Ororo.

Yes, he was being nosy. Yes, he felt protective of a woman that was promised to someone else. T'Challa wasn't here right now, and Logan was going to step up in his absence. If he had his way, he'd replace the man completely, but he knew that such a thought was a bit on the ambitious side.

_I'm nothing if not ambitious,_he thought with a smirk. If he wasn't then he would have pursued Jean Gray rather than Ororo Munroe.

"What happened?" she asked him quietly.

Hunched over so far that even Ororo had to bend down to be eye level with him, Kurt was the very picture of shame. Perhaps he thought that he might getting Jean into trouble. "Es macht nichts," he said carefully. _It doesn't matter._ "I was just startled when I saw some of the images of this base that you are looking for. She didn't hurt me, I promise."

Ororo nodded, reluctantly. "As long as you're okay…"

"Ja. Do not worry about Kurt." He stretched widely and stood to his full height. As he'd only seen Kurt crouching so far, it surprised Logan that the blue mutant towered over Ororo. He even seemed to be a little taller than Logan. "I believe the Magneto was right to suggest sleep. I will return to my tent now. Gute Nacht, Göttin." _Good night, goddess._

The teleporter disappeared with in a puff of sulfur and Ororo sighed, finally turning to Logan. "What a day," she muttered.


	34. My Stupid Mouth

Well, I get to go house-sit for the grandparents for a few days, so I thought I'd put this up. A little on the short side, but so much can happen in so little time, right? Enjoy!

* * *

Ororo ran her fingers through her hair. Though she looked fresher than she had earlier, she looked no less tired.

"You okay?" Logan asked as casually as he could manage.

She sighed again. "I'll be fine," she said sternly.

Logan could see how guarded her expression was. He wanted her to talk to him, if it would help, but John had been right when he'd said that talking sometimes made things worse. He didn't know her well enough to know how to help her, and he desperately wished that he did. He wanted Ororo to tell him everything that was on her mind. He wanted to hear every detail of what was troubling her so that he could see it as vividly as if he'd lived it himself.

He knew that part of him wanted these things from her simply because he liked her, but he also knew that, more than anything, he wanted her to _want_ to tell him those things about herself.

He grabbed her hand and gently tugged until she was standing in front of him. _To hell with T'Challa! He can kiss my ass._ "I'm sure you'll be fine eventually. I want to know how you are right now."

She sighed heavily, looking away from him. She didn't pull her hand out of his, and he took that as a good sign. However, she looked like she was waging war inside her mind, and Logan didn't want to put her under more stress than she was already in. He only wanted to help.

"You don't have to answer that," he said softly. "Do you need anything?"

"Too many things," she said softly, pinching the bridge of her nose. He idly wondered if John had picked up on that trait from her, or if she had gotten it from him.

Before she could turn away, he caught her chin lightly between his fingers and held her gaze. Her eyes seemed to be glowing. He wasn't sure if they truly were or if he just saw her that way, but whatever the reason, it caused his heart to pick up a hard and fast rhythm. He didn't dare breathe.

She was _so_ close. He felt himself involuntarily leaning in, and though his fingers were softly pulling her towards him, he wasn't doing all the work. Her lids fell half shut and Logan gave a victory cheer inside his mind while trying not to let his weak knees pull them both to the ground.

He could practically taste her scent in the back of his throat, but she stopped at the last second and put her fingers to his lips, pulling herself away. Logan swallowed hard, trying not to be insulted.

"Too late," he guessed, hoping that he didn't sound bitter. "You're probably right. This isn't the time, what with you being engaged…"

She stared at him with a blank expression. "Engaged?" She had the nerve to sound confused. "To be married?"

"No. Engaged in battle." Logan knew he had no reason to snap, but he couldn't help feeling a little bitter. Was he always going to be too late?

But she didn't look guilty, she looked calm. Deadly calm. So calm that it raised the hairs on the back of Logan's neck. And then he realized why; she hadn't told him anything about T'Challa other than his nickname for her. And hadn't John sounded particularly distressed when he'd realized that he was telling Logan things about her that he didn't already know?

_Uh-oh._

"Did Jean tell you that?"

He hadn't expected her to blame it on Jean, but he didn't let it slip that it hadn't been John either. The boy had gotten into enough trouble for the day. "It doesn't matter." He straightened his jacket and pulled away, putting a good three feet between them. "I read you loud and clear. There'll probably never be time for you and me."

"Logan…"

"I'd rather not listen to you stroke my injured ego. I'm going to go see if Jean wants any help with the jet."

"_Your_ injured ego?"

He turned to leave when suddenly she grabbed his wrist with an iron grip. He turned back to her and honestly wished that he hadn't. "You really shouldn't believe everything that you're told," she said darkly, "especially when your information isn't from the source. But since you've taken such an interest in my personal life, why don't I take the time to break it down for you."

Logan felt his anger evaporate into discomfort, and he was already kicking his own ass for not thinking before he spoke. The look in Ororo's eyes suggested that she'd used up what little mercy she had on John. Logan was shit out of luck.

"I'm sure you've heard that his name is T'Challa. I'm sure you've heard that his codename is Black Panther and that he lives in Africa. I'm willing to bet that you were nosy enough to find out that I was born in Africa and that he used to be my best friend. Yes, I used to love him, but my needs took a backseat to his need to avenge his father. When I asked him if my love for him was enough, he walked out the door without looking back. I came to America with Xavier and now I'm an X-Man."

Her voice was rock steady through her entire speech, but Logan could feel a storm brewing under the surface. One wrong move and he didn't doubt that she'd use a bolt of lightning to strike him down.

But he didn't need to pretend to listen, because he was truly hanging on her every word. He felt a flare of anger on her behalf at the thought of someone simply walking away when she asked if her love was enough, but he decided to keep that to himself. She didn't seem to be in any mood to be comforted about that, especially by him.

"I'm sure that your informant was plenty specific," she continued. "So you must already know that T'Challa has been trying to earn my forgiveness by dropping in every few months just to visit with me. A week or two ago, he asked me to marry him. He showed me a beautiful diamond ring and promised that I'd be the queen of an entire country, complete with my own throne.

"Now, either your informer embellished and told you that I said yes, or you made your own assumption – since you know me _so_ well – and decided for yourself that I had said yes. Either way, I'm disappointed in you. If it's really that important to you, I'll tell you right now; I told him to shove that diamond ring right up his proud ass. I don't need an expensive diamond ring. I don't need a throne, nor do I need to be queen of an entire country. I don't want _things_ from the man I love, nor do I want an elaborate title – other than wife. But none of this is really any of your business, is it?"

He opened his mouth, grasping for anything to say. How could he possibly redeem himself? He'd had a chance all along, but now the look in her eyes said that he was at the top of her shit list, right up there with T'Challa. _Fantastic._

She shook her head, her lip curled up in disgust. "You know, Logan, I really don't know what it is about you. You crawled right under my skin the _day_ we met, but I shook it off because you had some valid points and I was able to learn from the experience. But this…" She waved her hand in the air between them. "I don't even know what this is. This is a knife in my side that you twisted for good measure, just to make sure that it took. I have to wonder if you do this on purpose."

He opened his mouth to defend himself – to tell her that he'd never hurt her on purpose – but she held up a flat palm. "What makes you think I want to hear you speak right now? What could you _possibly_ say to me that would make even the slightest difference in my low opinion of you right now?"

Logan bit his tongue. There was nothing he could say. He'd been lying to himself even a moment ago. He'd wanted to tell her that he wouldn't hurt her, but throwing that rumor in her face was an attempt to hurt her because she'd rejected a kiss from him a second time. Just a kiss! Was he so egotistical that he expected her to submit to his sexual advances at the snap of his fingers? If so, he'd picked the _worst _possible woman.

"You know, Logan, I think you're right." Ororo shook her head and walked back to the camp, deliberately giving him a rough shoulder check as she passed. "I don't think there's _ever_ going to be time for you and me."

He stood still, staring at the dying campfire. He'd only wanted to help, but somewhere along the line, his stupid mouth had multiplied her stress tenfold. And in a matter of minutes! It wasn't the first time he'd done it. She'd been stressed when Marie had been captured by Magneto too, but she'd tried to keep calm and be a voice of reason when everyone else was on edge. And for the second time, Logan had blown that right to hell because he was irritated with her.

He wanted to ask Jean what she thought about the whole situation. Perhaps she'd have some insight since she was Ororo's friend. But she didn't seem to be quite herself either, and he didn't want to be on her shit list too. The most he could hope for was that someday Ororo would listen to him when he said he was sorry. But, judging by the look she'd given him, that day was in the very distant future.

He rubbed his eyes with his palms. Who did he have to blame for all of this? Himself. _I'm such a dumbass._

He heard her slip into her tent and let out a loud moan. "_Really?_"

"I can't sleep," he heard John say in what he probably thought was an innocent voice.


	35. Ignorance Is Bliss

I know that I just updated yesterday, but after I posted that last chapter - and after a four hour drive to my grandparent's house - I was so excited that I started in on this one and couldn't stop! Imanaged to use my wireless card to hack into their Internet connection... Yeah, that's a lie. I just plugged my jump drive into their computer.

Anywho, I finished it after another three and a half hours of editing, and decided that I'd post it, despite how soon it was. Besides, the length of this one makes up for how short the last chapter was. I didn't think anyone would mind... :)

Enjoy!

* * *

Logan stood perfectly still, listening to the conversation between Ororo and John. She'd made it more than clear that she was in no mood to be bothered by him, but – to his credit – John was very persistent and refused to back down until he got what he wanted. He could take a few tips from the kid...

"I'm not staying in the same tent as him," he said defiantly. "Everyone thinks I threw a temper tantrum by setting some cars on fire? The tent is a few degrees below _zero_ and he won't stop bitching and moaning about how his family must hate him and want him to die…"

"I know it's frustrating, John," Ororo said wearily. "Bobby has no idea what it's like. As far as we know, he hasn't experienced true hatred like we have. That being said, can you really blame him for being naïve?"

"I sure as hell can!"

"Stop cursing."

"He has no right to speak so casually about something like that. His mother specifically said 'we still love you, Bobby' and his father couldn't stop calling him 'son.' "

"In his defense, he doesn't know any better. He's never been looked down on as less than human."

"Fuck his defense…"

"Let me hear you curse one more time," she said warningly. "You _know_ that I'm not in the mood for this."

"Not knowing any better isn't an excuse. If some psycho kills someone, do you think the victim's family cares that he didn't know any better?"

"You're comparing apples to oranges, John."

"They're both fruit."

"Don't be a smartass."

"Oh, so you can curse but I can't?"

Logan heard a low rumble of thunder in the distance. "Do you think you're the only one that has difficulty being around your friends?" she asked, her voice truly tired. "Do you think I like listening to Logan wish that he could remember his past when all I want to do is forget mine? Do you think I want to listen to Jean ramble about her wedding when the only man I've ever loved stabbed me right in the heart?"

"That isn't the same as – "

"It's exactly the same, John. You're listening to Bobby talk about how much his family must hate him. Yes, they may be upset with him, but they're alive, and they love him. They may have called the police, but they didn't mean to hurt him.

"You're not angry, you're envious. You've never met your father and you had to listen to Mr. Drake call Bobby 'son' for an entire afternoon. You heard Mrs. Drake tell Bobby that she loved him despite his mutation, and your mother – "

"I know what happened to my mother," he snapped viciously. "You think I don't see her burning in the flames every time the fire is under my control?"

"Oh, I know you do, because I see my mother being crushed my twenty seven stories of metal and concrete every time I create an earthquake. Why do you think I don't make them anymore? I'm not even responsible for my father's death and sometimes I think I hear his plane crashing when I create thunder."

So her parents were both dead. She'd mentioned that she wasn't responsible for her father's death, so did that mean that she _was_ responsible for her mother's? She'd sympathized with John seeing his mother in the flames, so did that mean that John's mother was dead too? Perhaps he was responsible for her death? Perhaps both of them had killed their parents. Or perhaps both of them were unnecessarily blaming themselves for something that they'd had no control over.

What did it matter? Ororo had made it abundantly clear that if he wanted information then he should go to the source. Technically, he was getting his information from the source, but eavesdropping probably hadn't been what she'd meant. He wouldn't dare ask her any questions so soon, but if she ever did forgive him, he intended to ask more about her childhood. He wanted to know everything about her.

Logan didn't really think that he and John were that close yet, but the boy had said that he preferred Logan – though what he preferred Logan to was still a mystery.

Ororo sighed heavily, and her voice seemed to soften from the harsh whisper it had been. "John, no one knows about true loneliness better than we do. Bobby is one of the hundreds of millions of people on this earth that doesn't know how good he has it. I know it's tempting to tell him just how dark the world is. I know that you want to make him understand even an ounce of the pain you've endured, but I truly believe that our suffering can't be for nothing."

Logan heard John shuffle around in the tent and sigh. "You can believe that if you want to, but answer me this; why me? Why not someone else?"

"Because it had to be someone, and that someone turned out to be you. And me. We're lucky we found each other, because others like us are still out there on their own, wondering the same damn thing. Sometimes I wonder why, too. Sometimes I just want to crawl into a hole and die, and then I remind myself that I'm not alone. I think that God chose the strongest people to bear these burdens. He knows that you can handle it."

"How would he know?"

"Because he knows you better then you know yourself."

"You've been talking to that Nightcrawler character, haven't you? I saw his little beaded necklace, cross, hail Mary, whatever…"

Logan heard a slap, and the sound wasn't particularly quiet. She didn't sound angry, so he assumed that she'd just slapped his hand. "It's called a rosary. And a little more faith would do us both some good. Kurt's had hardships too and he can look at the positives and say that God is testing his faith."

"So date him."

The matter-of-fact way that John had said it made Logan wonder if he'd heard correctly. The comment even seemed to give Ororo pause, but after a few torturous seconds, she laughed. "You always know just what to say, don't you?"

"I do what I can," John said smoothly. Logan let out a small breath. "Kurt is nice, I guess, but you'd eat him alive, wouldn't you?"

"I'm not that bad." There was a long pause before Logan heard Ororo sigh. "Okay, so maybe I am. I think I'm entitled after the week that I've had. Now go to bed. If you really can't bear to be in the same tent with Bobby, then you can sleep outside." The tent grew quiet and after a few moments, Logan heard an annoyed huff and what sounded suspiciously like a kiss. "Goodnight, John."

"Night, Ma."

Despite her obvious dislike of him at the moment, Logan felt a smile tug at his lips. It was indeed good that they had each other to lean on, though some people shouldn't be made to suffer as they apparently had.

He heard John exit the tent and simply lifted his head to the sky as though he'd been studying the stars. John wasn't the least bit fooled. "Enjoying the clouds?"

It was much too cloudy to even see the moon, but Logan didn't miss a beat. "Enjoying Bobby's mood?" he countered.

"Bobby can kiss my ass."

"She's right, you know. You shouldn't curse."

He didn't seem the least bit surprised that Logan had heard their conversation either. "Isn't it hypocritical to tell me not to do something that you yourself do?"

That made Logan think for a second, but the answer to that remark wasn't hard to find, and it related to more than their immediate situation. "Just because someone else does something, that doesn't mean that you should do it too." He paused, wondering if he should bother wasting his breath. John wasn't going to listen, was he? He seemed attentive, so the best he could hope for was that what he was telling John would sink in, even if it wasn't right away. Better late than never. "Did it ever cross your mind that she tells you not to curse _because _she does it?"

John frowned thoughtfully. "You mean like warning me against making a mistake that she's already made?"

Logan's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. John had read between the lines, voicing what he'd been trying to say much better than he had. _Smart kid._ "In essence."

He nodded. "But we aren't talking about just cursing, are we?"

_And perceptive._ "No. honestly, I couldn't care less how much you do or don't curse."

"I wish I knew why she cared," John muttered, pulling out his lighter. "When she gets in a real rage, she could make a sailor blush."

Logan didn't doubt it, but he didn't want to talk about her, especially when she could probably hear their every word. Just the mention of her name made his chest feel heavy with guilt and shame. "Just because I killed men last night, that doesn't mean that you should feel empowered to do the same."

"I didn't feel empowered to do the same," John said simply, lighting his Zippo as he began playing with the fire in midair. "I don't think I see the world the way everyone else does. For me, everything I see is something that could potentially be burned. I know the temperature necessary to keep a tree burning in an ice storm. I know how much heat the average person can tolerate before they'll pass out. By calculating the distance from the earth to the sun and figuring in how hot my skin feels in the sunshine, I can roughly estimate the temperature of the surface of the sun." Logan rolled his eyes. The trouble makers were always the smart ones. "Everything I see, people included, are just fuel for the fire."

Despite how impressive his intellect was, the casual manner in which he explained how he saw the world sent a shiver up Logan's spine. If he truly saw the world in terms of heat and fuel, it wasn't too surprising that he'd terrorized people out of spite. Weren't most people afraid of fire? Logan wondered how hard it was to restrain his urge to burn things, and had a new respect for that damn lighter lid that he was always snapping. He could just imagine what was going on in John's mind while he opened it and shut it. All he had to do was start his lighter…

Just like Logan. He could tear anything and everything to ribbons if he wanted to. All he had to do was pop his claws out and let his temper take him. He wondered if John's resistance to burning things was like his own resistance to giving in to his temper. From that perspective, they were very much alike.

John managed to morph the flames into the shape of a tarantula, and he made it crawl up and down his arm, leaving his clothes unharmed. Logan wasn't much opposed to spiders, but the flame-spider moved like a real one, and it made Logan brush his arms though he knew nothing was crawling on him.

"I wasn't lying when I said that I've killed six people," John continued quietly. "Sometimes I see their faces in my nightmares. Seeing them… it helps me pull back sometimes when I'm on the verge of adding to that number. Today I just wanted to frighten the cops, and I know that I got out of hand. Pretty soon I wasn't concentrating on how scared they were. I was calculating how much heat would send the car ten or fifteen feet into the air." He paused, his voice becoming more serious. The spider was on his shoulder now, but he blinked and it disappeared into nothing. "I know how heavily a soul can weigh on a heart."

"So, you're saying you're sorry?"

"Yeah, whatever."

Logan smirked. John was a much different case than Marie had been, but he could see why Ororo was drawn to him and wanted to look after him.

"My mother used a Zippo lighter all the time," he said suddenly. "She smoked a lot, but she always did it outside because I told her that I didn't like the smell. I told her that I wanted one and she got me this." He held it up and examined it closely, his expression far off. "The flint was dull and there was no fuel inside, but I didn't want it to light things. I just wanted to do tricks with it and look cool in front of my friends." He lit another flame and simply swirled it around like a ribbon. "Now this lighter is all I have left of her. The fire burned everything."

Logan hesitated, unsure if he should ask John what had caused the fire. If the memory was too painful, he'd just brush it off, right? No, he shouldn't assume that John would let it go that easily. He might pretend that he didn't care about anything, but Logan knew better.

John let go of his hold on the second flame and it vanished. "I didn't ask for this power. I discovered it on accident when my mother was smoking at the bus station one day. I was watching the way the embers burned the cigarette to ash and suddenly sparks were flying and her sleeve caught fire. I don't know how they found our house or how they figured out that I'm the one that started her sleeve on fire, but they went to a lot of trouble to trap us in the house that night and burn it to the ground. Humans have cursed my existence since before I was born. I may know better than to kill them, now, but why should I risk my life to protect them?"

How could he possibly answer that? In his own opinion, John's anger and hate were well placed. And he'd said that he knew better than to kill people. There was no harm in pretending they didn't exist, was there? "If it doesn't feel right, then don't do it."

"Isn't that what the X-Men do? You guys went to Liberty Island to save all those big wigs at the World Summit. You put your own lives in danger to save theirs, and most of them would probably hate you if they knew what you are."

"If you don't want to protect them, that's your choice. No one will hold that against you. But sometimes sitting idle while bad things happen is just as bad as doing it yourself."

"So, either I risk my life to save humans, or I let them die or get hurt which, according to you, is just as bad as doing it myself?"

"You shouldn't let my point of view define who you are and what you do."

"Well, how am I supposed to know what the right choice is?"

"Process the situation and decide what feels right. You may think that your perception of right and wrong is hazy at times, but your heart always knows. The trick is to not to let your mind take over. Your first instincts are usually right because your brain hasn't over processed the situation."

"Okay. Xavier's X-Men and Magneto's Brotherhood have similar goals, so you have to really analyze how the two are different, don't you? If we had exactly the same goals, then we wouldn't always be butting heads."

Logan hadn't spent that much time with the X-Men, and he truthfully hadn't even known that Magneto called his own following the Brotherhood. But one didn't have to be on the inside to see the extreme differences between the two. "We may have similar goals in mind, but the methods in which we go about accomplishing those goals are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The method makes all the difference."

"The method makes the difference," John repeated quietly, as though committing it to memory. They stood in silence for a few thoughtful moments before John sucked in a breath. "You're an outdoors kind of guy, aren't you, Wolverine?"

"You can't have my tent," he replied shortly. And just like that, the mood was lifted. John certainly seemed to have taken his words to heart, and he'd been much smarter than Logan would have given him credit for only hours ago.

Then again, all he'd known of John a few hours ago was a temperamental teen that liked to run his mouth and snap his lighter. Perhaps all Magneto knew of Logan was a 'slice 'em and dice 'em' fighter. They hadn't spent enough time talking to each other for Magneto to realize that Logan was fairly smart, but Logan was just fine with that. The dumber he thought Logan was, the better.

"Well, you never know until you ask," John mumbled in response to Logan's refusal to give the boy his tent.

"Go to bed, John." Both John and Logan whirled around and found Ororo standing behind them, her arms crossed and looking more tired than annoyed. "Go on. You win. Sleep in my tent and I'll sleep in Jean's tent."

Logan could have sworn that he heard the youth mutter, "Checkmate," as he nodded and disappeared into Ororo's tent. Ororo glanced at Logan out of the corner of her eye before gliding past him without a second glance. He certainly deserved it. He'd have to truly make an effort to earn her forgiveness, though he wasn't exactly sure how. _I sure as hell won't try to _buy_ it_, he added as a vicious afterthought.

Apologizing would be a good first step, but she needed time to cool off first. She stopped before she was out of sight and turned to him. Her voice was low when she spoke, but Logan heard her clearly. "For John's sake, thank you." Her voice was tight, as though thanking him were an effort.

He could certainly understand how John could be a handful, and Logan had only known him for twenty-four hours. His temper seemed to be nearly as hot as Ororo's, but listening to the two of them interact, it was clear that they truly did offer each other support in a world that had treated them unjustly. Logan was happy to help.

"I didn't do it for you," he said, biting his tongue the second the words left his lips. That had sounded a lot worse than he'd intended. She narrowed her eyes and he hurried to explain. "What I mean is, I know it'll take more than that to earn your forgiveness." _Yeah, saying that will help..._

She stared at him for a long moment before she shook her head and turned away. "If you can," she muttered darkly into the night.

He had a sudden thought, and wrestled with it for half a second before he finally blurted it out. "Do you really hate me just because I want to remember?" He knew that she'd probably be mad that he'd been listening in, but honestly, everyone knew that his hearing was exceptional. And part of him wondered it she had been so angry with him because he'd brought up something that she desperately wanted to forget.

Her jaw tightened as she seemed to be deciding if she wanted to answer his question. "No," she said finally. "I don't hate you for not being able to remember." Which translated to, 'I do hate you, but not for that reason.' "I'm guess I'm just jealous."

"You'd like to wake up one morning and feel as though you'd been born at that moment? You wouldn't know where you are, where you'd come from or even _who_ you are."

"Ignorance is bliss."

"And knowledge is power. Maybe your past hurts, but it's shaped you into the person that you are."

"Maybe underneath all of that shaping is the person that I was meant to be."

"Or maybe He," Logan pointed to the heavens, "specifically shaped you into the person that you were meant to be."

Her expression became slightly less hard as she turned to the tent that John had disappeared into. "But why?" she whispered before turning to leave.

Logan wanted to call to her, but he knew that there was nothing he could say would stop her from leaving him alone in the darkness again.


	36. What Just Happened

Logan stared at the fire for a few more minutes after Ororo left, thinking about everything that had happened in the space of about half an hour. It was beginning to give him more of a headache, so he lit a cigar in the dying embers and meandered back to the jet. He could hear Jean inside, tinkering here and there, and he hoped that she'd give him something to do to distract him from his thoughts.

He stood by the ladder and waited as he heard her make her way down. She paused momentarily when she saw him, as though she was debating whether or not she wanted to turn and flee. Maybe she just wanted some time to herself. He had the feeling that he was about to find out.

"Hey," she said after an awkward pause.

"Hey," was his gruff response.

He inhaled his cigar, expecting her to continue on her way or perhaps give him something to do, but instead she frowned down at him. "You okay?"

He exhaled slowly, mulling that over. Could he classify his feelings as okay? The morning had begun with invading Bobby's house, explaining to his parents that he was a mutant and attended a mutant school, having the police called on them, and being shot in the head. The afternoon had consisted of nearly being shot down in an aerial dogfight, having a panic attack while they plummeted to their death, looking for John in the woods and being severely insulted by said teen. To draw the evening to a close, he'd reestablished his hatred of Magneto, ruined his friendship with Ororo, had something of a heart to heart to John, and finally ending with another short talk with Ororo that seemed to have left her more sad then angry.

Despite his best efforts, he really couldn't tell how Ororo felt about him. If she didn't give a damn about him, then he wouldn't be able to get under her skin so easily, right? The kiss they'd almost shared suggested a definite spark. Yes, she'd pulled away from him, but the way that she'd inched closer suggested that she'd wanted it as much as he had. _Funny, that I only realize that now._

But he'd only been in her company for three days, altogether, and she'd spent most of that time being angry at him for something or other that he'd said. He wasn't really used to watching his mouth, and he didn't know enough about Ororo to know what to avoid saying around her. He was so confused by everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours and so tired from lack of proper rest that he hardly knew how he'd begin to tell Jean his long list of problems.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said finally.

"You sure?"

He turned his attention fully to Jean, impatient for a subject change. He took his cigar out of his mouth and tapped the ashes away. "How're we doing?"

She sighed, and looked up at the jet. "Not good. I'm running fluid through the hydraulics, and if the test passes than it'll only take four or five hours to get her off the ground. We're certainly stuck for the night, but the good news is that our stealth netting should hide the _Blackbird_ pretty well from any casual reconnaissance. The passive scanning array says that we've got clean skies to the horizon, and according to the info-dump on the main computer, there shouldn't be any surveillance satellites overhead, so there's minimal risk of detection."

During her long diagnosis, Logan had grabbed her arm in an effort to silence her, but she'd seemed intent on finishing her analysis. When she finally finished, he blinked hard, wondering at even the gist of what she'd said. "Wow. That's not at all what I meant."

She sighed again and turned away from him. "I know what you meant. That's how I chose to answer." He lifted a brow at her and she shook her head. "I'm just worried about the professor… and Scott."

The second had seemed like an afterthought, but Logan paid it little attention. "I'm worried about you," he insisted, pulling her back as she tried to walk away. "That was some display of power up there."

She scowled at the damaged jet. "Obviously it wasn't enough."

"Hey, hey. Come on, you could have disabled the second missile no problem if you hadn't pacified me. It's mostly my fault."

He'd placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed in what was meant to be a comforting gesture, but she looked into his eyes with a pained expression. "I love him," she said carefully.

Logan frowned. She hadn't sounded very convincing, and the way she'd said it made him wonder exactly who she wanted to convince. Was she telling Logan that she loved Scott, or was she reminding herself out loud? Why did she feel she had to justify her loyalty to Scott in the first place? As far as he knew, she'd known that he had eyes for Ororo. And he'd certainly never made a move on her.

Jean had been acting a little off ever since he'd come back, and he was determined to find out why. For whatever reason, she needed Logan to know that she loved Scott. "Do you?" he challenged, feeling that he was treading into dangerous territory.

"Girls flirt with the dangerous guy, Logan," she said, giving him a sad smile. "They don't take him home. They marry the good guy."

Okay, so Scott must be the good guy, since Jean was going to marry him. Hadn't Ororo said they they were going to get married? That meant that Logan must be the dangerous guy that she was flirting with. So far, he didn't see that anything was wrong with that, though Scott probably wouldn't see their banter as purely friendly. But shouldn't he trust her to be faithful to him?

And when had be even gotten the title of 'dangerous guy?' He certainly flirted with danger, but how could he not when he knew that he'd always heal? Having such an ability made it easier to be reckless; he was willing to admit to that. But that recklessness sure as hell came in handy when you wanted to stack the deck in your favor. And being dangerous didn't automatically translate to being the bad guy.

He wondered if Ororo followed this 'dangerous guy, good guy' logic too. Did Ororo see him as only the dangerous guy that she could flirt with occasionally? He gave Jean a casual shrug. "Is that it? I could be the good guy."

Her smile became sadder still. "Logan, the good guy sticks around." The tone in her voice bothered him. It sounded almost… longing, like perhaps she wanted him to be the good guy. _Her_ good guy. He frowned at her, studying her intently. Could it be that, in his light hearted flirting with Jean, that she had come to like him as something more than a friend?

No. He knew her about as well as he knew Ororo, but he refused to believe that she had genuine feelings for him. Didn't brides have serious doubts before they got married? Logan was almost a polar opposite of Scott, so maybe whatever affection she had for him was centered on 'what if?'

That seemed like a normal enough conclusion. Perhaps she just needed to be reassured that Scott really was the man for her. His hand flew from her shoulder to her neck faster than she could follow, and he paused for half a second. He knew that this wasn't just about showing Jean that she didn't really love him. True, he felt no spark with her. While he'd wanted to pull Ororo closer, he wanted to put a little distance between himself and Jean. But he was so frustrated with Ororo…

_Fuck it._

He pulled her into a heated kiss, his mind and body screaming in protest the instant his mouth was on hers. But she returned his kiss with surprising enthusiasm. Her hand roughly gripped the back of his hair and pulled him closer. He opened his eyes in shock and caught a rush of images and memories that didn't belong to him.

He was looking at the world through Jean's eyes. She and Ororo were sitting in the jet, staring out the window blankly. Ororo called Jean's name, but she didn't seem to notice. She called again and still nothing. Ororo reached out and lightly touched her friend, and Logan almost felt the light shock that she'd given Jean.

"I'm sorry," Jean said hurriedly, shaking her head.

"Are you okay?"

"All of the sudden, yeah," she said lightly, trying to brush it off. But even through Jean's eyes, Logan could see that Ororo wasn't buying it.

"Something wrong?"

Jean shifted in her seat, staring straight ahead. "I was just thinking that it'd be nice if this flight would go a little faster. I guess I got a little carried away. I didn't mean to push the jet faster."

"I see."

Ororo said nothing else, and Logan felt Jean's slight irritation. "What?"

"Nothing. I asked, you answered, end of story."

"_What_, Storm? Spit it out!"

Ororo shrugged, but Logan could see that she was picking her words carefully. "It doesn't have anything to do with Logan being back in town, does it?"

To his absolute amazement, Jean slumped down in her seat and buried her hands in her face as the blood rushed to her cheeks. "Oh, God. It shows."

"The sun 'shows' every morning when it rises, Jean," he heard Ororo say, an odd tone in her voice. "And right about now it has nothing on you." She sounded… bitter.

"This isn't fair!"

"Are you annoyed or tempted?"

"_Both_," she said, looking up and scowling at the controls.

"Ouch." Logan could sense Jean's ignorance, but he caught the hard look in Ororo's eyes. "He does have the look," she commented softly.

"You've got to take him off my hands."

"Sure, I'd be glad to," she muttered sarcastically, giving her friend a fake scowl.

"You're going to bust my ass forever, aren't you?"

"Plus a few days," she said lightly. Ororo then seemed to turn serious, and the strange look in her eyes vanished completely. "Look Jean, I like him. You know that. Personally, I think that you're just getting cold feet because you and Scott have a huge wedding right around the corner. But that's just my opinion. Only you can know what you truly feel. If Scott is taking a back seat to Logan - truly coming in second - then maybe you have your answer."

Logan felt a tired smile tug at the corner of Jean's lips, and she seemed to relax, if only a fraction. "Yeah, I'll bet you're right. What I feel is minor league. You two are the show, if the images I get from your head are any indication."

"We go together like matches and dynamite," Ororo agreed. "John hasn't even met him but, based on rumors and what I've told him, he thinks that Logan and I are a match made in hell."

"You told John about him?"

"He's a smart kid. When I was mad at Logan, John saw me and said, 'alright, whoever can get you all hot and bothered like this is someone worth mentioning to your kid.' He pulled it out of me."

"So John likes him, you like him... What's stopping you."

Ororo looked sad suddenly. "I told you that T'Challa visited again, right…"

Jean broke the contact between them and Logan blinked rapidly, his vision returning to normal._ What just happened?_ Half a million questions raced through his mind as he looked at Jean. Did she really feel that there was something between them that was more than friendship? If so, how long had she been feeling that way?

He suddenly remembered the first night he'd talked to both Jean and Ororo. Ororo had shoved him against a door for admiring her backside, while Jean had been tolerant of his advances even after he'd nearly choked her. He'd wondered to himself if pursuing Jean might be a better idea than pursuing Ororo, but he hadn't truly meant it. He wondered if Jean had heard him thinking that, and had taken it to heart. Yes, he'd thought that Jean might be a fun challenge, but he didn't want Jean. He liked Jean just fine, but there was no contest.

He felt his entire body freeze. Did that mean that he wanted Ororo? Truly _wanted _her? He definitely liked her, but did he lo - ?

Several hundred more questions came to mind that pertained to Ororo and whatever he was feeling about her, but Logan knew better than to think too hard about her at the moment. Whatever he'd just seen, however he intended to interpret it, Jean was in front of him right now, and the issue between them needed to find some sort of resolve. _Now_.

"Please." It was a whisper between her ragged breaths. Her eyes were pleading, but Logan wasn't sure what she meant by that desperate plea. Please stop? Please _don't_ stop? "Don't make me do this."

He blinked. "Do what?" Being that she was telepathic, she had to have sensed that a good portion of his mind had been screaming that kissing her was wrong. In fact, the only way she couldn't have heard him was if her own thoughts were so loud that they'd overpowered his. That wasn't at all his fault, and he was insulted at the implication that he'd ever make her do anything against her will. He certainly hadn't _asked_ her to nearly rip his hair out.

"This!" She lightly touched her lips and turned away from him. _"Don't make me choose."_

He wasn't sure if she'd meant for him to hear that, but that seemed to clearly be the end of the conversation. Logan inhaled her ginger-cinnamon scent and frowned. She would only have to choose if she thought that Logan was offering himself to her. While that hadn't been his intention at all in kissing her, it seemed that he'd somehow done exactly that.

_Can I do _anything _right?_

He tried not to grumble out loud at his misfortune as he took a slow step away from her, giving her a little breathing room. She nodded appreciatively and Logan popped his cigar back into his mouth. During their 'discussion' it had burned halfway down, and he bit back another growl. He tossed it into the darkness, too annoyed to care that it was his last one.

He noticed for the very first time that Jean's pulse was off. It took a minute for his brain to function properly enough for him to realize that it wasn't one odd pulse. It was two different pulses.

"You're pregnant," he said flatly. That would explain her hormones and why she'd damn near jumped him. It would also explain why her scent was split into ginger and cinnamon now rather than just gingerbread. He wasn't sure of what else to say, but apparently nothing more needed to be said.

Her left hand absently rubbed at her still flat stomach as she stared off into the distance blankly. "So I am," she said slowly.


	37. What I Want

Another short chapter, but this one was so darn entertaining that I couldn't add more clutter to it. More to come soon, but until then, enjoy!

* * *

After a few moments of silence, Logan had decided to leave Jean alone to her thoughts. He crawled into his tent and flopped down hard on his back, pulling out his dog tag. He knew that he should be sleeping, but he didn't even try. His mind was too busy to allow sleep, so he twirled his only clue to his past between his fingers, as though physical contact – or glaring at it – might inspire some miraculous revelation.

He paused momentarily to listen to a conversation outside, but lost interest when he realized that it was just Kurt and Mystique. (Had he just heard Kurt call Mystique _mother_?) He had enough problems of his own without listening in on yet another conversation that had nothing to do with him. He was spent, and it was only ten o'clock.

In his annoyance, he'd tossed away his last cigar, and he was already regretting it. A beer sounded great at the moment, but he tried not to dwell on the thought. He knew for a fact that the _Blackbird_ didn't have any, and there probably wasn't a bar for miles. Magneto struck him as the type to prefer wine, if he carried alcohol on his person, and from Mystique he expected nothing less than poison. Just the thought of the look she'd given him when he'd all but kissed the ground made him grimace.

He looked up and groaned inwardly when he saw a shadow outside his tent. Before he could tell whoever it was to beat it, Jean slid into his tent with a look of longing and mischief that he'd never seen in her eyes before.

Logan inhaled slowly and then sighed, wondering if he ought to indulge her or if he should kick her out like he knew he should. Tonight was getting to be too complicated for him. "Look…"

She silenced him with a finger against his lips and then straddled him, settling her weight on his hips. She pushed him back until he was lying down with her on top and he didn't stop her. She covered his lips with her own and he didn't stop her. She ran her hands up and down his chest, her touch electrifying, and he didn't stop her. He knew that he should. His entire body was rejecting her advances, but a small voice in the back of his mind reminded him of what Ororo had said.

"_You're right. I don't think there will _ever_ be time for you and me."_

His hands slid up her sides as he internally debated. He could let go. He could give way to this fantasy…

No, he couldn't. He pulled away, knowing his answer as he bushed the scar on her abdomen where he'd stabbed her six weeks ago.

"Busted," Mystique said with a coy smirk as she shifted into her blue form. Her yellow eyes, as always, raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Kissing Jean and Mystique had been a mistake, and going farther than that would be another mistake altogether, one that he didn't intend to make. "No one's ever left a scar quite like you," she whispered.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "What do you want, and apology?"

She chuckled, much as he would, as she leaned down and whispered hotly in his ear, "I think you know what _I_ want." She bit down on his lobe, hard and sexy, and sat up straight, shifting her position just enough to make her intentions and desires unmistakable. She shifted her form again until Logan was staring up at Marie, wearing only a black bra and panties and covering herself demurely.

Of all the things in the world that could absolutely kill Logan's sex drive, this was at the top of that list. He'd never felt more impotent in his life. He made a face and looked away in disgust.

She used her strength – and she was quite strong – to gently but firmly turn his eyes back to her, but she had shifted form again. Brown hair became white, pale skin became dark, green eyes became blue, and the black lingerie faded into flesh.

Now he was looking up at Ororo. His breath caught. She gave him an evil smile as she lifted her arms to spread her hair wide across her shoulders. His view of her was unobstructed – and what a view it was! He swallowed hard.

"Is _this_ what you want?" she purred in Ororo's voice.

Against every instinct in his body, he wanted to kiss her again, not caring that she'd smell like blueberry rather than rainforest. He could hardly breathe anyhow, so the possibility of her scent annoying him was almost nonexistent. He wanted to tell her that she was a stronger person for everything that she'd ever endured. He wanted to tell her that, despite John's occasional bad behavior, she had done a good job raising him. He wanted to tell her that he could treat her better than T'Challa ever could, that he'd worship the ground she walked without second thought and always put her first.

He reached for her. He wanted her so badly that it made him ache from the inside out. He wanted her more than his life, more than his _past_.

_No,_ a small voice in the back of his mind said, coaxing him back to earth before he did something foolish. _I want _her_, not Mystique._

His indecision seemed to make her rethink being in Ororo's form, and she morphed back into Jean. That finally snapped Logan out of his daze and he sat up, roughly shoving her back. He struggled to regain some small piece of mind while Mystique righted herself from her inelegant landing.

He could give himself a hundred reasons why it would be okay and even sensible to indulge in this fantasy, but each and every one had the same downfall: this wasn't Ororo. It was only a glimpse of what could be between him and Ororo, if life were more fair.

And he wasn't going to settle for a glimpse.

She glared hatefully at him and morphed into Stryker, doing the old man's chillingly evil smile justice. "What do you _really _want?"

He scowled at her. She knew that he wanted to remember who Stryker was, and she was throwing it in his face because she was bitter about being rejected. Was this how Ororo had had felt when he'd mentioned T'Challa after she'd refused to kiss him? He shivered, feeling that perhaps he might understand her anger. "I want you to get out," he growled.

She morphed back into her blue form before sneering at him and storming out of the tent. He rubbed his eyes. "Damn," he muttered, lying back down as soon as he was sure that Mystique was gone.

If Mystique hadn't morphed back into Jean, he might had wrestled with his desires for a few more seconds before saying to hell with it and sleeping with her. He shivered again.

Everything about this night had gone horribly wrong. He'd betrayed Ororo's trust, he'd kissed Jean, he'd seen into one of her memories, he knew that she had a crush on him, he knew that she was pregnant, and he'd almost slept with Mystique. _Not a good night for me,_ he decided.

He rolled onto his side, determined to at least rest his body some. He knew that his mind would be running in circles until daylight, but maybe he'd get lucky and find himself in some blissful state between being asleep and being awake. _Wishful thinking._ He was too tired to care.

He never wanted to meet another woman, _ever,_ as long as he lived. Mystique, Jean and Ororo were complicated enough. Hell, Ororo was complicated enough all by herself.


	38. A Dangerous Mind

Morning came slowly for Logan, as he hadn't been blessed with sleep or anything remotely resembling rest. At dawn, he finally grew tired of just laying still and thinking, and got up to begin breaking down the campsite. He worked silently on the few things that he knew no one would mind him taking care of, like putting away his own tent and getting rid of any trace of the campfire. Small things, but things that made a significant difference when someone like Stryker was after you. He didn't know how he knew that, and wasn't going to waste time thinking about it.

John crawled out of Ororo's tent, looking somewhat energized, though Logan could tell that his night hadn't been restful either. His look spoke of someone determined to have a good day, whether he liked it or not. Logan made no comment as John silently began putting his own tent away, but he could appreciate the feeling of needing something to go well for once.

By the time everyone else woke, all that really needed to be done was putting the tents away and getting on board. Ororo didn't so much as look at him, and Jean avoided his gaze just as carefully. He wasn't sure if he should be happy that Jean was pretending that he didn't exist, or upset that Ororo was doing exactly the same thing.

When everything was finally put away, Magneto boarded the jet like he owned it. Mystique was right behind him, but paused to flash Logan a secret smile to remind him of what had happened the night before. As if he needed to be reminded…

Logan tried to ignore it, but she made sure that he saw her give Ororo the same smile, most likely to make him wonder if she'd pulled the same trick on her. And, of course, to imply that Ororo had fallen for the masquerade.

He knew damn well that Ororo wouldn't submit to him – or her disguised as him – after what had transpired last night. But that didn't mean that she hadn't gotten as far as kissing Ororo. His swallowed hard. She'd almost gotten farther with him, so there wasn't any reason to doubt that she'd _almost_ gotten father with Ororo too…

He shook his head. They were going to Alkali Lake, and everyone needed to focus, him most of all, since Stryker was such a large key to his past. And besides, if he really wanted to know if Mystique had tried to seduce Ororo last night, he could just ask. She may not answer him, but he liked to think that he was pretty good at reading facial expressions. Enough, at least, to interpret a yes or a no.

He let it go for the time being and closed the hatch when Bobby and Marie finally climbed on board. As Marie passed Magneto and Mystique, they smiled widely to her; the kind of smile you'd expect from family.

"We _love_ what you've done with your hair," Magneto said.

She froze, every muscle in her body as tight as a drawn bow. It stilled Logan as well. He heard a vicious snarl in the bottom of her throat before Bobby hurriedly said, "Hey, let's go. Come on," and pulled her away.

Logan caught her wrist as she passed and gave it a reassuring squeeze as she sat down. She smiled calmly back at Logan. "They can kiss my ass," she said, returning the squeeze. Logan nodded, satisfied. His Marie was stronger than such pettiness.

Jean and Ororo each took turns piloting the jet while the other donned her X-Man uniform. Logan watched the pilot like a hawk, sure that at any moment something would groan and the jet would snap in half. He hardly felt safe being on the _Blackbird_ – especially after yesterday's episode – and having Magneto aboard brought him no amount of comfort. The old man certainly wouldn't let himself crash and die, but where did that leave the rest of them?

Once Jean and Ororo had both changed, Logan found that his own uniform – perfectly patched, much to his surprise – was in the jet as well. He was able to pull it on in only a few minutes, and he happily realized that he wasn't wearing his old suit at all, but a much lighter suit with material that breathed much better and wasn't nearly as tight. It looked identical, but Jean had no doubt made the necessary changes after his struggle with his last suit. Or perhaps she'd just told someone that changes needed to be made. He'd have to thank her, whenever she began speaking to him again.

He came out of the small changing space, tugging at his gloves to test the flexibility of the material. Magneto and Mystique still sat in the very back of the jet, whispering nonsense to each other. John sat near them, flicking his Zippo lighter open and closed and staring off into space. Ororo seemed to be piloting the jet, Jean was her copilot, Kurt was quietly praying in German, and Bobby and Marie were standing by the display case, admiring the manikin that had recently been stripped of a uniform.

"Why don't we get uniforms?" she asked wistfully.

"Yeah," Bobby agreed. "Where's ours?"

"They're on order," Logan said dismissively. "They should arrive in a few years."

Marie huffed. "Twenty isn't old enough?"

Logan raised an eyebrow at her. "Who's twenty?"

"I am," she said, crossing her arms defiantly.

Both his eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "No shit?"

"July 24th was my birthday."

That had only been a few weeks before Logan had met her in the bar. He blinked, unsure of how to reply to that. At most, he'd thought she was about seventeen or eighteen. He wondered if that had anything to do with the fact that he more or less viewed her as a daughter. Of course she would automatically seem much younger in his eyes if he saw her that way. "So, what's the legal age to do everything in this country?"

"Eighteen," Bobby answered.

"Twenty-one, it is," Logan replied, turning his back to the disappointed teens and pushing the now empty display back into the wall. He dropped into his seat, clutching the armrests while constantly reminding himself that Ororo was a competent pilot. She'd ducked and dodged two fighter jets the day before – while maintaining about fifteen angry tornadoes, at that. Surely she could handle cruising in clear skies.

"They say you're the bad guy," John said, snapping his lighter shut – or open. Logan wasn't quite sure anymore, but he found that the noise didn't annoy him as much as it had the day before. _Give it time…_

"Is that what they say," Magneto replied conversationally. The tone in his voice implied that he would be happy to end the conversation there, but Logan knew better. For John, _any_ silence was uncomfortable.

"That's a dorky-looking helmet you got there. What's it for?"

"This 'dorky-looking' helmet is the only thing that's going to protect me from the _real_ bad guys." There was a thoughtful silence, and Magneto continued speaking after a moment. "What's your name?"

"John."

"What's your _real_ name, John?"

There was another moment of silence before the smell of gasoline filled Logan's lungs. "Pyro," the youth replied, as though in a trance. Logan didn't have to turn around to know that John was probably cradling a flame in his hand. It was the first time that he'd heard John's codename, but anyone could have guessed that it had something to do with fire. He couldn't say that he was particularly surprised.

"Quite a talent you have, Pyro," Magneto said appreciatively.

"A talent is a gift," John replied flatly. "Gifts can be returned."

"That's one way to look at it."

"I didn't know that there were any fancy places like Xavier's until I was sixteen. Most of what I know about my powers I had to teach myself before then. I used to think that it was a curse, but once I learned to control it, I began to think of it as a power, an advantage that I'd been given over humanity. But I can only manipulate the fire. I can't create it." His last statement was laced with disappointment.

"Have you tried?"

"Of course I have!"

"Have you _really_ tried?" Magneto pressed. "You know that fire consists of heat, fuel and oxygen correct? And that a chemical chain reaction is what triggers a spark?" He took on the tone of a college professor.

"Right." And John sounded like his attentive student, eager to learn. It could only spell trouble, and while Logan wanted to stop Magneto then and there, John was going to hear what he wanted to hear. And Magneto would only be too happy to tell John what he wanted to hear against Logan's wishes.

"Oxygen is all around you, so you don't have to create that. If you can manipulate fire, then I think I can safely assume that you have control of the heat, yes? That leaves fuel. Almost all objects are combustible, and any combustible object is potentially fuel…"

"So all I have to do is concentrate on creating enough heat to raise the object to its ignition temperature!" John seemed to be eating out of the palm of his hand. Logan had to admit, Magneto was nothing if not a powerful speaker. He could probably talk a hungry dog off of a meat wagon. "I tried studying the science of fires a while ago, but Xavier said that my mind was root of my power."

"Indeed it is. And what is knowledge, if not power?" That seemed to give John pause. "You are a god among insects," Magneto said firmly. "Never let anyone tell you different."

Logan stood from his seat, turning to the back of the jet and glaring at Magneto, who gave him a harmless smile. "Stop recruiting," Logan snapped.

Magneto chuckled. "You X-Men always insist on holding your students back from their full potential," he said in a chiding tone. "Has it ever occurred to you that the only reason you ever win is simply because there are more of you?"

"All the more reason to assume that you're recruiting," Logan replied.

"They don't hold us back," Marie protested. "I've learned more about my powers in the past six weeks then I learned when I was on the run for an entire year."

"Dear child, all that proves is that you're not competent when it comes to teaching yourself."

Logan felt his lip curl up. His anger drowned out his discomfort of being in the sky, and he almost took a threatening step closer to Magneto. It may be beneficial to have Magneto with them when they stormed Stryker's base, but they could certainly do it without him.

Magneto turned back to John, seemingly uninterested in anything that had to do with Logan or Marie. "The fact that you were able to teach yourself most of what you know about your powers is a great complement to your knowledge capacity. I, myself, am self taught about the use of my powers, and look how powerful I've become." Oh yes. Magneto was stroking John's ego in all the right places. "Just think of how much more you'd know if you were still experimenting with your powers and pushing your own limits instead of theirs? Think of how powerful you'd be right now if you'd continued to study something as simple as the science of fire rather than letting Charles talk you out of it."

"Knock it off. His ego is already too big for the jet!"

The look on John's face, however, suggested that victory was Magneto's. Even if he didn't open his mouth again for the remainder of their time together – Logan _highly_ doubted that – the gears in John's head were already turning over everything that Magneto had told him.

It suddenly occurred to him that Magneto was somewhat correct in his accusation of the X-Men holding the students back. Xavier himself had said that John needed 'careful teaching.' But it was for his own good, wasn't it? If he got too power crazed at such a young age, there was no telling what havoc he'd wreak, especially considering his past. But not teaching him to his full potential took away his choice, and not having a choice was a sure way to inspire rebellion.

Logan could understand why the children might be frustrated at the prospect of being held back. Certainly Marie would want to know the extent of her power so that she'd know how to better control the potency of her touch. And, being that John couldn't create fire, he was probably eager to try creating it. Someone like him would test plenty of different theories to get the answers that he wanted.

And Logan wanted his memories. What harm could there be in knowing your past, even if you can't remember it? Teachers preached up and down about history and being doomed to repeat it…

Even Jean seemed to still be discovering just how powerful she was, though Logan couldn't begin to guess why she was so far behind. Perhaps it wasn't even his place to jump into the conversation. Bobby seemed to have faith in the X-Men. Marie, although a little miffed about Xavier's technique, also seemed to believe that it was truly for her benefit. Logan didn't doubt that John felt betrayed at the thought of being held back. He'd felt much the same when Magneto had told him what he'd wanted to know about his past without all the bullshit of trying to figure it out on his own.

"Are you quite alright, Wolverine?"

Logan blinked and glared at Magneto. Marie, Bobby, Magneto, and Mystique had all been watching him wrap himself around his thoughts. John looked equally lost in his own mind, and Logan finally sat down when he realized that trying to talk to John would be useless. He needed some time with his thoughts. By the time they were done with all this business with Stryker, hopefully he'd be up to listening to their reasoning for holding him back – _if_ that was what they were doing. Ororo would certainly explain it best, and Logan knew that John would put her word over Magneto's.

All they needed was some time to talk it out. Once they were done with this mission at Alkali Lake, he'd tell Ororo to talk to John.

"We'll be there in about twenty minutes," Jean announced.

"Good," Logan said, sitting back in his seat. He was anxious for some answers, and Stryker was going to give them to him, whether he wanted to or not.


	39. Something Like It

Yes, I know… _more_ shortness! Before you commence gathering rotten fruit to throw at my door, I'd like to state, for the record, that this is _not_ my fault! Jean just wouldn't stay quiet, no matter how I tried to shut her up.

Not that I hate Jean…

Per se…

Hate is such a strong word… She's good people so long as she knows where she stands with the Wolverine.

Anyway, next chapter will probably be up around midnight or something, so I'll shut up now. Enjoy!

* * *

"_You've got a lot on your mind,"_ Jean told him silently.

Logan nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of her voice, but returned to gripping the armrests. _Too many things happening at once,_ he agreed.

"_I know that I'm the cause of some of that stress. I'm sorry."_

_It's not your fault._

"_It _is_ my fault. My problems are my own, and somehow you got dragged into them. _I_ dragged you into them."_

Well, it wasn't as though he had been kicking and screaming.

"_Not out loud."_ He felt badly that she'd heard that, but she was right. He may not have made a big scene, but perhaps she'd heard his displeasure when he'd kissed her after all. It wasn't that he didn't find her attractive. He just didn't have that kind of affection for her. He hoped that she wasn't offended by that.

"_I know that kiss was awkward for you, but thank you. I don't have many friends that would do something like that purely for my benefit, and at the expense of their comfort."_

_Anytime._ And he meant it.

He felt a swell of emotions bombard him that didn't belong to him. They were aimed at him. He could feel Jean's love and affection humming in the air around him, but it didn't startle him. These feelings weren't meant for Scott, they were meant for him, and now Jean could separate the love she had for Scott and the love she had for Logan.

She was going to have a baby with Scott. She was going to marry him and they were going to live happily together for the rest of their lives. Logan, on the other hand, was her friend, her best friend. She'd never had a best friend that was male, and perhaps that's where her confusion had come from. She could talk to him about anything if she needed to, as with her other friends, and she knew that. She loved him like a brother, and though she didn't specifically say anything to indicate that she was feeling all of this, he could feel it through her emotions.

"_Thank you,"_ she thought again. _"I never would have had the courage to ask for something like that, but it was exactly what I needed."_

_Anytime,_ he repeated._ But I might try to stay away from going to such extremes in the future._

He felt her humor when she thought, _"No, you won't. That 'all or nothing' attitude is in your nature."_

_What makes you think that?_

"_You've got that look."_

He frowned. Hadn't Ororo said the same thing to Jean yesterday in the vision – or whatever – that he'd seen? How was having a certain look significant? What did it even mean?

"_It just means that you have the air of a person that doesn't do anything halfway. You have passion and heart and you love from the bottom of your soul. And you protect the people you love and fight for them with everything you have. All or nothing, like I said."_

How was he supposed to respond to such a declaration? _Ororo could tell all that just by looking at me?_

"_When you came to us, all you had was Marie, and you almost died, more than once, trying to save her. When one of us had to get up to the machine, we knew how terrified – yes, terrified – you were of heights, but you trusted Storm and I to keep you from falling. Trust like that usually takes years to build, but when you decided that we were trustworthy, you trusted us with your life. I guess Storm came to the conclusion that you had 'the look' after looking back on all of that. I pulled all this from her mind, but that's the gist of it."_

She'd mentioned that he fought to protect those that he loved. He loved Marie, that was given. He loved Jean, as a friend. He even loved Ororo as a friend, but again, he couldn't help wondering if he was really at the point of loving her as something more. Yes, he liked her. That had been evident from day one. He was protective of her, and he'd admit – only to himself – that the thought of her being around other men made him a bit jealous. So maybe that meant that what he felt for her went beyond liking. He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to touch her, but since he hadn't yet, how did he know that he loved her?

He knew that love wasn't only physical, but that didn't mean that it was purely psychological either. So far, his affection for her hadn't been expressed physically other than a near kiss and falling asleep on her shoulder. And her physical affection had been restricted to letting him lay on her shoulder and grabbing his arm or wrist with an iron grip, usually to tear him a new one.

Clearly, they weren't on the same frequency.

So how was he supposed to know what it was that he felt for Ororo? Or, better yet, how did Ororo feel about him? She'd looked over his actions from six weeks ago with a careful eye and was able to determine his character. And the fact that she liked him for his character had to mean something, didn't it? _Any ideas?_

Silence.

_Jean?_

He saw her turn her head some, but she seemed to catch herself before she actually looked. _"What?"_

_Did you stop listening?_

"_Were you talking to me this time?"_ she countered. He heard the humor in her thoughts again. _"I'd apologize, but I blocked you out after you started thinking about touching her."_ Strangely, he felt no shame about that. _"Nor should you feel ashamed about it. I'm used to blocking out thoughts I don't want to hear. I do it from time to time when Ororo's thoughts go in that same direction. What did you want to know?"_

Honestly, he wanted to know how he felt about Ororo, and how she felt about him.

He saw her shrug. _"Why do you have to classify it? Why can't you just accept that it's not quite love, but something like it?"_

He thought about asking her what that was supposed to mean, but he was sure that she'd already shut him out again.

He frowned suddenly. Had she just said that Ororo's thoughts occasionally went in the same direction that his had? She'd blocked him out when he'd been thinking about wanting to kiss and touch Ororo… Logan's eyes widened. Was Ororo thinking those same things about him?

Jean turned around in her seat and threw him a quick wink.


	40. Take My Chances

Shoot! I forgot about time differences! My bad, if I disappointed anyone. For what's its worth, it's only 12:15 AM, my time, right now… and I _did_ say _around_ midnight or _something_…

* * *

As it turned out, having Magneto and Mystique on board was somewhat useful. When they were near enough to see the dam in the distance, she boredly pointed out that Stryker had modified his scanning systems to pick up the _Blackbird_, despite its stealth capabilities. With an amused chuckle, Magneto asked how they would have gotten in without him as he used his power to deflect the radar pulses before they reached the aircraft.

Somehow, Logan knew that they'd need more than that. He didn't know how he knew, but he wasn't one to argue with a gut instinct. He stood behind Ororo and tapped her shoulder lightly. She turned her head slightly in his direction, but didn't look at him. "Yes?"

"I don't think Stryker's scanners are only looking to detect our stealth settings," he said quietly. He knew that she was still mad at him, and though he knew that she wasn't the type to let her anger get in the way of a mission, that didn't mean that he had to pretend that they were just fine. A small part of him knew that she'd appreciate that.

She didn't move right away, possibly turning that statement over in her mind. Jean turned to him as well. "You mean…"

"Thermal scanners," Ororo finished, turning to Logan. He gave her a nod and she did the same, her eyes clouding over with white.

Satisfied, he returned to his seat. He didn't need to be told that she was smoothing the air behind them to counteract the heat from the jet's exhaust. She was a smart woman and, on occasion, he was a smart man.

The closer they got, the trickier Ororo's piloting became. She skimmed treetops when she had to and dropped beneath branches when she could. Helicopter pilots would have thought twice about some of her maneuvers. Jean seemed to be feeling around ahead of them with her telepathy, because every now and then she'd warn Ororo of an upcoming lookout to avoid or a patch of trees that was too dense to fly through.

Logan felt pretty useless, aside from his one piece of advice, but when they finally landed, he personally made sure that the stealth netting was perfect and that the internal systems were kept to a minimum. Perhaps no one else thought much of it, but if the children were going to stay with the jet, they needed as much help as they could get to avoid detection.

When he was done, he joined the rest of the group in the back of the jet. They'd used Stryker's stolen data from Mystique to construct a three-dimensional map of the base and had projected it as a hologram. After a few seconds of staring at it, Logan recognized an oval of land that had been stripped bare of trees. He'd been there only two days ago, thinking that the base was gone, along with any trace of his memories. Looking back, two days seemed like such a long time ago…

"Surface scans are cold," Ororo said with an air of authority that couldn't be ignored. Even Magneto seemed to be giving her his undivided attention. "No electronic emissions, no power, no heat signatures, nothing. Obviously, we know different." She tapped the control keypad in front of her and the scene changed, showing a different perspective of the base. "That first image was a topographic representation of the area. This one" – she pointed to various points on the display – "shows the density changes in the terrain. See all that heavy, repetitive activity?"

"Tire tracks," Jean muttered. "Someone's been busy."

"That's the main entrance," Logan said.

Ororo simply shrugged, as if to say, 'what was your first clue?' She hit a few more buttons and focused more on the spillway. Below the dam, it showed various shades of blue, whereas the surrounding landscape was white. "The legend tells us the depth of snow and ice that cover the ground. There's been recent water activity."

"If we go in there, Stryker could flood the spillway," Jean translated.

Ororo turned to Jean with a bit of annoyance. "Well, what do you suggest? Kurt, can you teleport inside?"

He shook his head in disappointment. "Nein. I have to be able to see where I'm going; otherwise I could end up inside a wall."

"I'll go," Logan said casually, as someone might announce that they were going out for a carton of milk. "I have a hunch that he'll want me alive."

"Wolverine," Magneto declared with tired annoyance, "whoever goes into that dam needs to be able to operate the spillway mechanism and neutralize any other defenses. Even if you knew what to look for and where to find it, what do you intend to do? Scratch it with your claws?"

He chuckled maliciously and Logan advanced with his eyes narrowed. "I'll take my chances."

The look of humor on Magneto's face disappeared as quickly as it had come. "But _I_ won't."

He turned to Mystique and she grinned, morphing in Logan. "I think I can handle it," she replied in his voice. Mystique had supplied most of the information about the base, so she would know exactly where to go and what to look for.

Logan hunched his shoulders and glowered at Magneto, exactly the response that the old man would expect from him. He knew, without a doubt, that Magneto's game was chess. Logan preferred poker, and he had yet to meet anyone he considered his equal – except perhaps Ororo. He liked to think that he knew when to play a hand and when to keep his cards hidden. He needed little thought as to which choice fit this moment best.

With a satisfied nod, Magneto turned to Jean, who tossed them both earpieces as Mystique/Wolverine exited the jet. They watched her until she disappeared into the distance, at which point Ororo called John over to a side computer and they tried to tap into Stryker's security camera feeds. By the time Mystique arrived at the spillway entrance, John and Ororo had managed to hack into the system and everyone had crowded around the screen to watch. Magneto gave John a smirk and a pat on the shoulder, but Bobby and Marie didn't so much as glance at him. He didn't seem to care.

They watched as Mystique/Wolverine walked down the spillway as though she were a monarch of all she surveyed, without a care in the world and even less to fear. "Stryker! It's Wolverine! Aren't you going to welcome me home?"

Logan rolled his eyes. "Stryker _knows_ me," he said, turning to Magneto. "He isn't going to fall for this."

"He doesn't have to," Magneto said with a knowing smirk. "She knows her job. She needs to get past the spillway and get to the control room. She doesn't need to fool Stryker to do that."

As he spoke, the tunnel wall opened and troops with heavy automatic assault shotguns surrounded Mystique/Wolverine. "Don't move! Hands in the air!"

She slowly did as she was told, and a few more troops came forward and used a device to shackle her knuckles up tight against her neck. No doubt the idea was that any use of the claws would cause Wolverine to decapitate himself. Logan found himself wondering, for half a second, if he could even do that. His claws were made of adamantium, but so was his spine. Would his claws cut so easily through his spine if they were both made of the same indestructible metal?

He filed that away to think about later as he watched the troops roughly usher Mystique past the doors and out of sight. John reached over Ororo's shoulders and hit a few keys and the screen changed to show what looked like a loading bay. The bay was buzzing with activity, but nearly everything slowed as everyone kept an eye on Mystique/Wolverine, who was positioned right in the middle on a raised platform.

Stryker strolled into view, wearing a chilling grin. "Look who's come home," he said cheerfully. But his triumph seemed to gradually turn to confusion as he got closer and examined the man on the platform more intently.

"Who do you think you're looking at?" Mystique/Wolverine asked. Logan wanted to shake his head and call her a dumbass for giving herself away, but it was clear that she'd given nothing away. Stryker knew. He was damn good if he could see the difference just by looking, and after fifteen years, at that.

"The one thing I know better than anyone is my own work," Stryker hissed. "Seal the room and shoot it."

"Seal the room," someone shouted.

"Step away," said another.

The various clicks of guns being taken off of safety could be heard before a beat of silence as the troops seemed to process that order. It was a beat too long, because Mystique was already in action.

In a blur of movement, Mystique returned to her natural form and was free of the shackles. She jumped and twirled in midair and tossed the shackles with impossible speed, and four troops were laid out in the blink of an eye. The rest of the troops with guns aimed at her didn't open fire, too afraid that they'd hit each other. The few shots that were fired missed her, and one of them must have hit some cables. The lights flickered and they could only hear thumps and thuds and groaning.

Over the chaos, Logan heard her high pitched cackle of delight. And then silence. He frowned wondering if something had happened to her when he heard Stryker's unmistakable voice. "We have a metamorph on the loose. It could be anybody!"

Just as Stryker had known that he wasn't looking at the real Logan, Logan knew that he wasn't listening to the real Stryker. Even though Mystique had mimicked his voice perfectly, something about it didn't send chills up his spine the way Stryker's voice did.

"Anybody?"someone asked.

Two loud thuds later there was silence, then Mystique's cheery voice. "I'm in," she said, not sounding the least bit out of breath. Magneto turned to Logan with a raised eyebrow.

"She's good," he grudgingly admitted.

"You have _no_ idea," he said with a smirk. "I'm not sure what your plan would have been, Wolverine, but as I said, I wasn't willing to take the chance, as you use your claws to solve all of your problems."

"Am I blushing?" Logan said with a half hearted scowl.

He shrugged and then addressed Mystique. "You know what to do, darling. We'll be there shortly."

A noncommittal huff was all they received for confirmation and Magneto gave a satisfied nod, exiting the jet. Ororo, Jean, Kurt, and Logan followed, but Logan heard more footfalls behind them and turned to see Ororo with her arms crossed staring at John.

"Let us help," he said. Though Marie and Bobby had been pretending that he didn't exist since the day before, they stood on either side of him now, nodding emphatically. It seemed that Ororo wasn't the only one that dropped personal issues for the sake of a mission.

But she didn't seem the least bit impressed by John's bravery. "You want to do this right now, John?"

"I want to help!"

"You're not helping with anything! Not out in there. We need you here. If anything happens to us, activate the escape-and-evade flight sequence that's programmed into the autopilot. You know how. Don't touch any of the controls, on the ground or in the air. The autopilot will fly you home just fine."

"So you want us to abandon you?" he accused. "Then what?"

As much as Logan sympathized with the position that Ororo was in, they didn't have time for this. He grabbed her arm with the same iron grip that she used on him, and gently but firmly pulled her away from the teens. "You've all got superpowers," he said shortly. "Figure it out."

He heard John grumble as he and the other two disappeared back into the jet and closed the hatch. Ororo jogged to catch up with the others, who hadn't slowed for them, and Logan ran beside her. He knew that she was angry, though Logan wasn't sure if she was angry with John or with him.

"Hey." She looked at him but didn't slow her pace. "Focus," he told her. "He'll still be there when you get back. You can tear him a new one on the way home."

She took a deep breath and offered him a quick smile. "I know. Thank you."

"Anytime," he answered.

They slowed as they finally caught up to the others and the spillway doors opened. Ororo's eyes clouded over with white as wind and lightning surrounded her. She was a few inches off the ground when the doors finally opened and Logan could smell fear and hear the pulses of all of the troops spike. Logan smirked. _Showtime!_


	41. Those Two Words

Here's another update! Enjoy!

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Magneto, strangely, knew exactly where they were going, and led the way down the various halls that were every bit as confusing as the ones in the basement of the X-Men mansion. Perhaps Stryker had made them that way on purpose, because Ororo and Jean made no comment as to why Magneto might know exactly where he was leading them. Logan and Kurt trailed behind the three without question.

They rounded a corner that seemed like so many others, but this time the hall wasn't empty. Guards snapped into action and immediately began firing. Magneto and Jean stood their ground, each throwing up an arm. Magneto stopped the bullets in midair while Jean pushed four of the eight guards into the solid metal door behind them. The other four were lifted off the ground and hit the ceiling with loud thuds and fell roughly to the ground.

The first few gunshots had pushed Logan's instincts into overdrive and he pulled Ororo out of the line of fire without thinking. He was vaguely aware of her pushing against his arm, but he held her still with little effort. She finally sent a snap of electricity up his spine and he jumped, releasing her with a mumbled apology. She didn't seem the least bit fazed, only nodded in thanks.

They emerged from their cover and Logan looked at the eight unconscious guards. "How did you get to be so powerful?" he asked Jean.

"Meditation," she replied with a shrug.

Magneto waved a finger effortlessly and the metal door popped from its frame like a cork from a bottle. Inside, Mystique spun around in her chair, smiling widely at Magneto and giving him a heartfelt round of applause.

The brisk manner in which Magneto entered suggested that he was in no mood for games, but Logan noticed him rake her over with a careful eye. He didn't doubt that Magneto was looking for any signs that she'd been hurt in her scuffles. Of course, she was perfectly unscathed, and Magneto nodded. "Have you found it?"

The blue mutant spun back around and hit a few buttons on the keyboard and pointed to one of the various monitors in front of them. "A large portion of the energy that the dam is generating has been diverted to this chamber." She tapped on one of the many screens to indicate a sector that had no video capability.

Logan studied the map. None of it looked familiar to him, but if Magneto was right, this plan had been set in motion long before he'd come here with the intent of digging up his past. In truth, with all this technology, it amazed him that he'd gotten so close without anyone notifying Stryker about it. Perhaps they'd decided that he wasn't a threat when he'd simply cursed and left.

"Some of this is new construction," Mystique added, pointing to some other sectors.

"My fault, I'm afraid," Magneto conceded.

"Can you shut Cerebro down from here?" Ororo asked.

"No," Mystique replied shortly. "If it could be done from here, we could have found a way to hack it from the outside."

Logan stopped listening as one of the images on an active security screen caught his eye. Stryker hustled down the hall, a tall and important woman in a business suit hot on his heels. He opened his mouth to tell the others, but reconsidered and turned his full attention to the keyboard in front of him. He studied it for a few seconds before deciding to type a location query into the system. _Bingo_.

He turned to the others, internally debating. Did he go with the X-Men and fight as a team, or did he go off and get his own answers? He felt he owed Ororo the world, but Xavier? Magneto? Surely she'd understand if he felt he had to go find Stryker. Xavier had lied to him, and Magneto... well, he was himself.

"Come," Magneto said to Mystique. "There's little time."

"Not without us," Jean said firmly.

Magneto looked between Jean, who stood her ground, and Mystique, who shrugged indifferently as she continued ticking away at the computer.

Ororo had spotted something on one of the monitors that made her oblivious to their silent stand off. "The children!" She turned back to Jean, who was still engaged in her stare down with Magneto, and gave an agitated huff. "Kurt, will you come with me?"

"Ja."

"Good. Where are they, Mystique?"

"They're being held in a cell one level down," she said with disinterest.

"All right. Kurt and I will get the children and meet you three at Cerebro."

"Okay," Jean replied. "I'll try to find Scott and the professor along the way."

"Will you be alright without Kurt and I?"

"Yeah. I'll be fine."

Well, their plans didn't seem to include him, and considering that he thought he could find Stryker and get some answers, that was just fine with him. That was all Logan needed to hear before taking off his earpiece and tossing it aside as he left to find Stryker. They had everything covered, and he wasn't getting out of this empty handed. Not after finally finding someone that knew his past.

"Where's Logan," he heard Ororo ask as he rounded the corner. He froze. Could he leave her like this? She would probably be angry with him for leaving, or perhaps she'd expected him to leave sooner and just wanted to make sure that he was really gone.

Another thought hit him; she'd said that her love hadn't been enough to keep T'Challa around. Was he somehow doing the same thing right now? Leaving her when she wanted him to stay?

No.

She hadn't told Logan to stay with the group. She hadn't told Logan to stay with her. She hadn't told him that she loved him. At the moment, he couldn't be sure of how much she even liked him. What he _could_ be sure of was that Stryker had answers that he needed. After everything was all said and done, he'd find Ororo and get everyone the hell out of here.

"He's gone," Jean said quietly. Logan was sure that she knew he was just around the corner, wondering if he should stay or go. She was telling him to go.

"Then we'll have manage without him," Ororo said with a strong tone.

Logan didn't need any more encouragement than that. He caught Stryker's scent after a few turns and followed it, not bothering to look where he was going. After a few minutes, his nose lead him to the room of his nightmares.

The first thing he noticed were the various scratch marks on the walls. He popped his claws out of his knuckles and held it up to one of the scratches. A perfect fit, as he knew it would be. But something about seeing his claws matched to the marks made it much more real. He'd been here. His claws had been created _here. He_ had been created here.

He pulled himself away from the wall and spotted the tank that he'd been lowered into in every one of his nightmares. He had flashbacks of drowning in the water but being unable to die, being injected with the hot metal, opening his mouth to scream and having his lungs fill with water…

He heard echoes of screams, smelled blood as though it had just been spilled. He'd fought his way out of this place, of that he could be certain. He inhaled slowly and pulled his claws back into his knuckles, moving on to examine the tools

The needles he'd been injected with were on one side of the tank, monitors were on the other side, and at the far end of the tank was a boiling metal. He frowned and examined it. He sniffed the metal and his frown deepened. He never thought anything about the scent, because it had always been a part of him. Even boiling a few feet away from him, the smell didn't stand out that much.

Yet the entire scene made him shiver. At last, he knew where his nightmares came from.

Logan heard Stryker's approach from out in the hall, but didn't acknowledge it. The strong smell of wheat prompted him to finally look up, and he saw that Stryker had a mutant with him. She was the beautiful woman in the business suit that had been trailing behind Stryker. It was a sure bet that, despite her small frame, she was Stryker's bodyguard. She stood back, her hands clasped behind her back with a look of indifference. Stryker, however, strolled up to Logan as though they were old pals.

"You know," Stryker said from across the room, "the tricky thing about adamantium is that, if you ever manage to process its raw, liquid form, you need to keep it that way. Keep it hot, keep it molten. Because once the metal cools…" He stood face to face with Logan with an evil smile. "It's indestructible. But you already knew that, didn't you?"

Stryker then took a few steps back, eyeing Logan's clenched fists with caution. "I used to think you were one of a kind, Wolverine. I truly did." He continued backing up, but the sharply dressed Asian woman stood her ground. Stryker retreated into a hall and pushed a button, closing the door. He looked at the woman and gave her a deliberate nod. She gave him a curt nod in return and loudly cracked her knuckles, while Stryker continued to retreat with a smile. "I guess I was wrong. This is my loyal assistant, Yuriko, or Lady Deathstryke, if you prefer. You mutants are so fond of your codenames, or at least you were when you picked yours."

Logan blindly advanced on Stryker, hoping to stop the door from closing completely. Not that the door would be much trouble. Cutting it apart wasn't a problem for him, but the solid mass that prevented him from reaching Stryker was a _definite _problem. Lady Deathstryke shoved him and he flew back a good ten feet, his back colliding with a support column.

Stone and powder lightly rained on him as he scrambled back to his feet, his vision already tinted red. His claws jumped out of his knuckles as he growled at her. He had no interest in her, only her boss, but if she wanted trouble, he'd make it short and final.

But instead of being surprised by Logan's claws, Lady Deathstryke looked bored, as though that sort of thing happened everyday in her world. Logan was used to the reaction he got from other people when they saw his claws for the first time, but now he got to experience that shock for himself. She spread her fingers wide and her nails elongated into ten-inch spikes. He didn't need to be told what they were made out of.

"Holy shit," were his first words. Somehow, he got the feeling that those two words didn't quite cover it.


	42. Beg For Death

Oh-kay! Time for some action! My favorite part! Enjoy!

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Lady Deathstryke smiled at Logan, but it wasn't a human expression. In fact, nothing about her seemed human or even close to it. She was a predator, and all others were her prey.

She jumped into the air, spinning like a tornado with her arms stretched out. Her lethal nails made the air hiss until they caught Logan's cheek, cutting him. With his claws at full extension, Logan threw a punch at her. She ducked out of reach of his claws and stabbed him in the abdomen, knocking them both to the ground. He gasped in pain for half a second before taking a shallow breath and blocking it out. She rolled away from him and was on her feet in one swift movement. Logan scrambled to his feet to go after her.

She ran straight for the wall and used it as a springboard to flip herself up and over his head. All five spikes of her right hand pierced into his back and she cart wheeled over him, using the momentum to throw him clear across the room. He hit a cement support beam and fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

Logan lifted himself off the ground and cracked his neck irritably, feeling the wounds close and his vision steadily becoming redder. As she charged at him, he caught her in the stomach and slammed her into another support beam. She managed to pull away as he tried to slice her in half, but he just settled for stabbing her in the stomach again with his other set of claws. She finally stilled, gasping in pain. He pulled out and stabbed her a third time, satisfied when she cried out in pain.

She held herself still for a few seconds, but just as Logan was going to let her slump to the floor and bleed out, she looked up into his eyes and smiled, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. Before his eyes, the scratches on her face closed as though they'd never been there, and her steel grey eyes locked with his.

She had the ability to heal too.

_Damn it!_

As much as he hated to admit it, Stryker and Magneto had been smart to choose women as their bodyguards. Women were loyal, ruthless protectors, and it seemed that every woman he'd met in the past month and a half could kick his ass.

Lady Deathstryke was no exception. He had strength and a fair share of agility, but Lady Deathstryke seemed to posses speed that he couldn't hope to match. Coupled with the fact that she possessed a healing factor every bit as effective as his, the chances of this fight not ending in death were slim to none.

She grabbed his wrists – which were still embedded in her stomach – and climbed up his body until her heels were on either side of his face. She jerked all of her weight to the side and spun away from him, one of her sharp heels clipping Logan in the eye. He staggered back, reeling from the hot pain before shaking it off to see that she'd landed gracefully and was advancing again.

She tackled him before he was even aware that she was running and they both went sailing across the room, crashing into glass and stabbing each other as they rolled on the ground.

Logan pulled them both to their feet but Lady Deathstryke was quicker to recover from it and kicked him in the face, sending him spinning. She stabbed him multiple times, carefully choosing to connect with soft tissue instead of bone. He howled in pain, jumping away from her. She hadn't expected him to pull back, and one of her strikes missed. Seizing the opportunity, he grabbed her wrist and elbowed her in the face with all his strength.

She hissed in pain and pulled out of his reach as he tried to pick her up. Instead, she stabbed him in the middle of his back and lifted him off the ground. Stars erupted behind his eyes and when they finally cleared, he was laying on a rusty metal rack. He caught sight of the tank a good five feet below him and realized that she must have thrown him up there.

Before he could roll off, he heard the rack groan with the added weight of her hanging beneath it. She gripped his throat to hold him still and began viciously stabbing him, her nails never once touching any of his metal laced bones. After about seven strikes, he lost count in his haze of pain. He blinked hard, trying not to black out.

He reached out and sliced the chains that were holding the rack in the air. They both fell, but Logan landed above water while Lady Deathstryke crashed into the tank. He didn't hear her moving, and decided that he might have a quick second to recover. Even if he did want move, it wasn't going to happen too soon.

He coughed and sputtered, tasting blood in his mouth from where she'd punctured his lungs. He tried focusing on healing his wounds, but there were so many that his insides were torn to ribbons. When he did finally manage to roll over, Lady Deathstryke jumped out of the water, pushing the rack up and stabbing his sides, causing Logan to see stars again. She pulled them out and plunged them in again. Logan opened his mouth to scream, but only blood came out.

She kept pushing the rack up, until finally it was almost vertical. Logan flailed his arms and pulled away from her, falling into the tank. He gasped and his lungs filled with water…

_He felt the searing pain of boiling metal being injected into his bones. He tried to scream, but he couldn't breathe this time. Water filled his lungs and the pain only got worse…_

Logan reared up immediately, eyes wide as his nightmare flashed before his eyes, causing his mind to riot. Dazed and clumsy, he was at the end of his rope. Lady Deathstryke sprang onto the lip of the tank with a ballerina's grace, flashing Logan a triumphant smile while he stared with wide, fear-filled eyes.

As she moved to strike him, he felt a surge of wild energy and was out of her reach faster than _her_ eyes could follow. She blinked, but Logan had already snatched up a syringe and plunged it into her heart. She recoiled and looked down at the needle in horror as Logan pressed the button to inject the liquid.

As the molten metal began oozing out of her eyes and mouth, she looked up at him in confusion. Her hard silver eyes became a warm brown and Logan realized that this must have been one of Stryker's 'methods of persuasion.' Yuriko – he was positive that she was no longer in her Lady Deathstryke mode – probably didn't even know who Stryker was.

Her eyes burned into his soul, not accusing, just confused. She stopped breathing as metal began to leak out of her nose and mouth. Logan closed his eyes tightly and looked away as he pulled the needle out of her chest, tossing it away as though it had burned him. He heard Yuriko slip back into the water and a metal thud at the bottom of the tank confirmed that she was truly dead.

He climbed out of the tank and slumped to the ground, panting heavily. She had been innocent. He wasn't sure what kind of magic Stryker had worked on her, but she'd been under some sort of influence, and she had paid for his arrogance and pride with her life. Magneto at least gave Mystique the choice to defend him to the death, and she did so willingly.

He was positive that the look in Yuriko's eyes would haunt his dreams for years. He shuddered and focused on trying to heal himself for a few minutes. He needed to find Stryker, but his need to heal was greater. There was no doubt in his mind that he'd find Stryker, and the old man would get what was coming to him.

After a few deep breaths, Logan was ready to get back on his feet. He crawled to his feet slowly, wincing. He was sore all over, and he probably would be for a few days. He stepped off the platform and stumbled, falling flat on his face and clutching his head as a phantom ice pick drilled his brain.

He howled in agony, thinking that maybe it was just the sharp pain of falling to the ground that had set his entire body on fire. The pain only got worse as he writhed on the floor, and he realized that something was horribly wrong.

Every wound from the past fight reopened. Every wound he'd ever received seemed to reopen. He rolled back and forth, groaning because he was too weak to scream. He was vaguely aware that he was rolling around in a pool of his own blood, but that was the least of his worries.

He gasped for breath, spitting out more blood as his lungs punctured and deflated. His claws jumped out of his knuckles, then retracted. The punctures didn't heal. His blood sprayed out of nearly every inch of his skin. Some of the wounds were random and messy, but a few were neat and purposeful incisions, all the way to the bone.

His movements became slower as he gradually became too tired to continue thrashing about. Less movement didn't lessen the pain, but he didn't have the energy to move anymore. Time seemed to stretch. He suddenly wasn't sure if he'd been writhing for hours or for a few seconds.

As quickly as the unbearable pain came, it vanished. His entire body pulsed as his healing factor slowly kicked into gear, and within a minute or two, he was fully healed. He staggered to his feet again, losing his balance a few times. When he was finally on his feet and leaning heavily against a support beam, he glanced down at the floor and cringed.

A lake of blood stretched out at least five feet from where he'd been writhing. A few sprinkles of blood had gone as far as the beam he was leaning against. It truly looked like something out of a horror film. He looked down at himself and realized that he did too. His suit was covered with his blood, his hair was matted and dripping blood, and it was a safe bet that his face was smeared with it too.

He popped his claws and retracted them, making sure that the wounds healed quickly. When he was satisfied, he went over to the tank that Yuriko was still in, dunking his head under and shaking his head in an effort to rid himself of his blood – and possibly his nightmares. While he knew that Stryker would shit himself if Logan came after him looking like this, he didn't want to look like this when he met up with Ororo and Jean again. They'd be less than impressed with all the blood.

He emerged from the water and shook his head again, moving to the door and slashing at it until he could crawl through. Stryker was going to _beg_ for death by the time Logan was finished with him.


	43. Who Am I

Yes, another short chapter. But, considering the fact that I just posted yesterday, I'd say the phrase "some is better than none" applies here. Enjoy!

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Logan followed the weak scent that Stryker had left behind and found that he knew where he was going. This had been his escape after they'd experimented on him. He was going outside. He reached the familiar iron door and shoved it open, his anger fueling his strength. He saw Stryker rushing about, getting ready to leave in a helicopter. Logan raced the long distance to him in a matter of seconds, hardly realizing how fast his feet were carrying him. As Stryker pulled the heady iron grounding chain off of the helicopter, Logan slammed him against the side of the craft and stabbed him in the liver. Stryker was sure to die, but not too quickly.

Stryker screeched in pain, his eyes wide with terror. Logan was seeing through a haze of red, so furious that he couldn't even smirk at the pain he was inflicting on Stryker. "I believe you were telling me something about my past?" he snarled viciously.

Panting heavily, Stryker seemed to be trying to focus but couldn't quite look at Logan. "Why did you come back?" he managed to whimper.

"You cut me open. You took my _life!_"

"You make it sound as if I stole something from you," he gasped, closing his eyes. Then he suddenly smiled. Did he still think he could get out of this alive? "As I recall, it was _you_ who volunteered for the procedure."

A cold chill ran down Logan's spine, like nothing he'd ever felt. "Who _am_ I?" he whispered.

"You're just a failed experiment." Stryker was playing every card in his hand. _Two can play that game. _Logan pulled his claws out fractionally and rammed them back in. Stryker screamed and spoke hurriedly. "If you really knew about your past… what kind of person you were… the work we did together… People don't change, Wolverine. You were an animal then and you're an animal now. I just gave you claws." He threw his head back and laughed weakly. Logan blinked hard, unable to process all that he'd just heard in such a short amount of time.

In the distance, he felt the explosion before he heard it, felt the pressure wave in the air a fraction of an instant before he heard the sound. Alarms soon began wailing loudly, and Stryker and Logan both turned to the dam.

"What the hell is that?" Logan demanded, pushing his claws in deeper.

Stryker gurgled in pain. "Some kind of rupture. The dam is going to flood water into the spillway to try to relieve the pressure, but it's too late. In a few minutes we'll all be underwater."

Logan thought rapidly. It couldn't be too late. He'd narrowly evaded death twice in the past fifteen minutes. How could he be too late? Jean was still inside. Kurt and Ororo and the children were still inside. Hell, even Magneto and Mystique were still inside!

"Come with me," Stryker said. "I know you still want answers, Wolverine. Don't you want to know how old you are? Or what your real name is? Or if you have any family? Or, if _she_ is still alive?"

That one, that last implication, hit the mark, dead center. His grip on Stryker loosened as his vision clouded. He was staring up at a beautiful woman – fair skinned with dark brown hair and the most beautiful hazel eyes he'd ever seen. She was staring down at him with a loving expression. "It means the Wolverine," she whispered with a smile.

Stryker began speaking again, and the vision was gone.

"We can just get in the helicopter and fly away. I give you my word, Wolverine, come with me and I'll tell you everything you want to know. You can't help your friends. You owe them nothing! They're as good as dead. But you're a survivor. You always have been!"

There it was. All he'd ever wanted in the past fifteen years. It was his for the taking, but it would come at a heavy price.

Even as he considered the pros and cons of going along with Stryker, he already knew his answer. He yanked Stryker close and tucked a fist under his chin. "I thought I was just an animal." He pushed his outside claws out until they were bracketing his cheeks, close enough to dent the skin but not yet break it. The air exploded with the scent of Stryker's fear, and something else; he had soiled himself. Logan smirked. "With claws."

"Just tell me what you need, Wolverine. Tell me what you _need_. Tell me what you _want_!"

It was a simple choice: did he want his past, or did he want his future? He glared down at Stryker, who was still watching him with horror filled eyes. Both men knew that Logan would like nothing more than to pop out his middle claw and use his severed head as a soccer ball.

Or, perhaps that was what the Wolverine that Stryker had known fifteen years ago wanted. Logan didn't have to be that person. Now was his chance to choose who he wanted to be.

He glanced up at the dam, where his friends were. It still showed no signs of the explosions that Logan had felt and, to the naked eye, it looked like it would stand forever. But he knew that he dam would likely crumble in the next ten minutes. If he was going to get everyone out, he needed to do it _now_.

Stryker jumped when Logan retracted his claws. "I have what I need," he growled. Stryker slumped to the ground, relieved. Logan shoved him hard against the leg of the helicopter and grabbed for a chain. He yelped in protest, but the look Logan gave him suggested that he could live a few more minutes or a few more seconds. It didn't take long to have Stryker wrapped tight in the chains, and when he was finished, he towered above the man that had made him what he was. "If we die," Logan growled, "you die."

At least this way, if they made it back in time, Logan could bring Stryker with them and he could possibly be _persuaded_ to give up the information that Logan wanted. And if they didn't make it back…

He didn't want to think about that.

He sprinted back to the dam, ignoring Stryker's frantic cries. "There are no answers that way, Wolverine! You'll kill us all!"

Hoping that that wouldn't be the case, Logan doubled his pace.


	44. Who Has Answers

Well, I apologize for the delay... Granddad has brain surgery in a few days, so I've only had a few minutes to spare to work on this chapter. Lucky for me (and you) it was mostly done last week. A few tweaks here and there made it presentable, so here it is. Enjoy!

* * *

Logan ran for the base and his friends faster than he he'd ran to the helicopter and Stryker. He ran blindly, unsure of where he might find anyone. All he needed was a scent, but no one he recognized had been anywhere near where he was right now. _All I need is a sign,_ he thought, stopping at a hall that split in four different directions. _Something. Anything!_

"_Logan,"_ Jean whispered. _"Logan, where are you?"_

"Jean?" he screeched. A spark of intuition - or perhaps desperation - prompted him to bolt straight for the first exit that came to mind; the spillway. Naturally, they'd head to that exit, as it was probably the only one they knew. Right? Logan doubled his pace as he began to hear heavy breathing and frantic pulses. He'd been right. He rounded the corner and saw everyone – Scott, Jean, Kurt, Xavier, Ororo, and about six children – hurriedly running to the spillway.

They were much closer than he was. If they made it past the threshold, they might not listen to him when he told them not to go that way. Time seemed to slow for Logan as he threw himself at the control box, stabbing it and effectively shutting the heavy iron doors. When the doors slid shut all the way, he breathed a sigh of relief, pulling his claws out before he got electrocuted. "You don't want to go that way. Trust me."

Everyone turned to look at him and he looked over everyone present. Jean was leaning heavily on Scott, favoring one leg. She looked to be in pain, but her leg seemed to be her only injury. Ororo and Kurt were carrying the professor between them, and none of them looked harmed. The children were mostly crowded behind a tall Asian girl with pigtails that looked to be about John's age.

He noticed that Magneto and Mystique were absent, but he'd have to be a fool to truly think that they'd stick with the X-Men after their job was done. Mystique probably knew the base better than Stryker did, and had found some secret escape hatch for herself and Magneto.

"Everyone here?" he asked. "Everybody okay?" He locked eyes with Ororo. Her bright blue eyes were intense as she nodded to him. She looked both angry and relieved to see him. He wanted to say that he was sorry for keeping her waiting, but a loud _BOOM_ shook the ground like an earthquake, causing the words to die in his throat. Jean and Scott were nearly knocked off their feet, a few of the children screamed and the Asian girl's eyes flashed and the control box behind him exploded.

One of the older boys - ten, if Logan had to guess - threw the girl a dirty look. "Damn it, Lee," he shouted. She slapped the back of his head and he stuck out a forked, serpentine purple tongue at her.

After the initial shock, everyone seemed to have righted themselves and Logan began moving. "Come on. There's another way out of here." He turned and retraced his steps the way he'd came, slowing his pace so that the others could keep up with him. The children seemed to be keeping up just fine, but the adults – who were each supporting someone – were falling behind.

He heard a sickening crack in the foundation of the dam as they reached the final door. Pushing the door open, Logan pointed them over the crest of the hill to the helipad. He turned back to see that the adults were moving faster now, but one of the boys - the one that had cursed at Lee and stuck his tongue out at her - had tripped on the ice and snow. Logan raced back and smoothly picked him up, rushing back to the others. He made it to the top of the hill and saw that everyone was simply standing there, staring at the empty platform.

Ororo was the first to speak. "Logan?"

Logan's heart stopped and he nearly dropped the boy in his outrage. "That helicopter was _right here!_" he screeched, looking desperately at Jean. _Stryker couldn't have taken it!_

"Magneto," she said quietly.

"That son of a _bitch_!"

The ground and air pulsed softly. Too soft for anyone else to feel, but not too soft for Logan and Ororo to notice. Both of them looked up half a second before the dam loudly groaned. In a matter of minutes, the entire thing would crumble and billions of gallons of water would be thundering down the valley, straight toward them.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. Logan turned to Ororo. "How many can you carry?" he demanded.

"I'm not sure. Two, if I don't have to carry them too far."

"What about the elf, what's-his-name? How many can he carry? How far can he jump? And Jean, can you use your power to make some kind of boat or something?"

"And what about you?" Ororo demanded.

Logan stared straight into her eyes. "I should be the least of your worries."

She narrowed her eyes at him in response. "You are. What I meant was, how many can _you_ carry?"

Logan nearly rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. _Way to go, dumbass._ Before he could respond, a tremendous wind caused them both to still. They listened hard as they scanned the skies. Were those jet engines?

The _Blackbird_ sailed clumsily into view and landed roughly a hundred feet away from the group with a loud thud that couldn't mean good things for a jet that had been shot down the day before. The hatch opened to reveal Bobby beckoning everyone to the jet. "Hurry! The dam is going to collapse!"

The others wasted no time in sprinting to the jet, but once he was alone, Logan heard ragged breathing not too far away. His nose told him exactly who it was. The boy still in his arms, Logan drifted away from the jet and back into the woods until he saw Stryker, chained to a concrete wall with his feet dangling a foot above the ground. Well, that certainly proved that Magneto and Mystique had taken the helicopter.

Logan wasn't particularly surprised by that.

"Who has the answers, Wolverine?" Stryker asked harshly. No doubt he knew that this was his last chance to get out of this alive. "Those people? That _creature_ in your arms?"

Logan ground his teeth. Yes, he wanted answers. But were those answers worth abandoning the X-Men and saving Stryker? Would Stryker even tell him the truth, or would he feed Logan all kinds of bullshit until he found a way to escape? Something deep down told him that it wouldn't be the first time Stryker had done something like that.

Stryker had called him an animal. Logan knew that wasn't entirely a lie, or even an exaggeration. But he had a choice. Could he live with the animal that he was now, or did he want to be what he had been once upon a time, when he and Stryker had supposedly worked together?

Logan looked down at the boy in his arms, who didn't seem the least bit frightened of him, but rather clung to him for protection. The X-Men didn't care who or what he was, nor did they care who or what he had been. He'd proven, more than once, by character and actions that he belonged. Though it pained him that his past and his future were his only two options, Logan knew what he had to do.

He set the boy down and pulled his dog tag out from inside his uniform, ripping it off of his neck and throwing it at Stryker with a sneer. "I'll take my chances with them," he said, picking up the boy and heading back to the jet.

"One day, someone will finish what I've started, Wolverine," Stryker shouted. "One day sooner than you think!"

The boy in his arms leaned back and stuck his odd tongue out at Stryker as Logan got onto the jet. Logan felt a smirk tug at his lips. Now that he'd been allowed to make a choice, he felt like a weight had been lifted off of him.

At the ramp, Bobby was waiting for them and took the child out of Logan's arms. "I've got him," he said hurriedly.

Logan ran up to Jean, who was hovering closely over Scott and Ororo. She turned to Logan with a strange look of concern that he didn't recognize. In her weakened state, she was projecting some of her thoughts. She was wondering if Logan regretted choosing them over his memories. He tried thinking that he didn't regret it at all, but she didn't seem to hear him.

"You all right?" she asked.

He inhaled deeply to calm himself and Ororo's rainforest scent filtered into his lungs like a wonderful drug. "I am now," he said with a smirk, quickly running up to Ororo, who seemed to be in distress. "What's wrong?"

"Everything," Ororo muttered darkly.

"Vertical thrusters are off-line," Scott snapped from the co-pilot's seat, pressing several different buttons in rapid succession.

"So fix them," Logan said, eyeing the dam distastefully.

"Do you think I'm just going to leave it?"

"Has anyone seen John?" Marie called out.

"John's here?" another girl asked, the girl with the pigtails, Lee.

"Pyro?" Logan looked back, scanning the faces and not seeing the Australian teen. "Where the hell is he?"

Ororo gasped. Logan turned back to her and saw that she was staring at John's lighter. His mother's lighter. He'd perched it above her console in a small slot that ensured that it wouldn't fly around. Ororo's hair began to stand up, the air charging with static electricity. "God_damn it,_ John!"

Lee pushed past Logan and froze when she saw the lighter. She stilled, and her upset caused the air to become heavy with her already thick gunpowder scent. "He's gone, isn't he," she said quietly.

"He's with Magneto," Jean said softly, giving Ororo and Lee a sympathetic look.

Ororo snatched the lighter, putting it in her pocket. After a short breath, she returned to her work, while Lee needed to be lead back to the back of the jet and out of the way by Marie.

"The thrusters are functioning now," Ororo said briskly, "but I don't know how long they're going to last."

"I'm trying to override but it's not responding," Scott answered back. "Come _on_!"

"We lost power!" Ororo growled and hit several different buttons on her side faster than Logan's eyes could follow.

"There's power in the fuel cells, we're just not connecting!" Scott leaned over and hit a few of her switches as well as some of his own.

"The engine control system is shot. All of it!"

Logan gripped the back of Ororo's chair tightly as he felt the ground shake. He tore his eyes away from the pilots and saw that the dam was finally starting to crumble.

"Is there an override?" Logan asked, trying to be helpful. He had no idea what the hell an override would help, but maybe they did.

"I _just_ said that the override wasn't responding," Scott snapped.

Ororo growled again. "It's just going to take time."

"More than sixty seconds time?" Logan asked, pointedly ignoring Scott. "I'm not sure we have much more than that."

"We need some kind of _external_ power," Scott said.

"Jean?" the professor asked, and everyone fell absolutely silent.

"Wait!" Logan looked back and felt his heart freeze. Not a strand of red hair in sight. He smelled the air; no trace of her ginger or cinnamon scent. "Where's Jean?"


	45. What She Needs

Well, thanks to all who hoped or prayed for my granddad over last weekend. Surgery went well, but that's only half the battle. Next comes recovery, but I have faith. And thank you all for being patient and understanding. Enjoy!

* * *

"Where's Jean?" Logan repeated.

"She's outside," Xavier said gravely.

Scott roughly pushed past Logan and run to the open hatch, Logan right behind him. The hatch flew up before Scott even reached it and when he tried to reopen it, it was firmly locked.

"I'll blow it!" he said, grabbing for the button on the side of his visor.

Logan made a dive for him. "No! Do you want to kill us all? She's trying to save us!" In the back of his mind, Logan knew that Scott would rather die with Jean than leave her. Were it Ororo out there, Logan wouldn't have hesitated to cut the door clean off. Scott would have been in his place, trying to stop him, but by now he might have cut Scott in half as well…

He refused to think about that. This wasn't about him. It was about Scott, and Scott wanted - _needed _- to get to Jean.

Logan heard the jet engines power up as Scott tossed Logan off of him with more strength than Logan ever would have given him credit for.

"Power is on," Ororo called.

"_NO_!" Scott shouted. "We're _not_ leaving! Lower the ramp!"

Logan looked back and saw that Ororo didn't have her hands on the control yoke, yet the jet was lifting off the ground. "Storm!" Scott cried desperately. _"Lower the ramp!"_

"I can't," she cried back. "She's controlling the jet."

Logan raced to the front of the jet to see Jean standing in front of a wall of water easily ten feet high. One arm was thrown out in front of her, providing a barrier for the water to go harmlessly around her and the jet. Her other arm was extending out towards the jet, as though struggling to lift it.

Logan turned to Kurt. "You! Get her out of there now!"

He shook his head, horror in his eyes. "I've tried! She's not letting me!"

"Dammit, Jean!" Scott shouted, now and the front of the jet too, watching her helplessly. "Let us help you! Let us help you! _Let. Us. Help. You!_"

"I know what I'm doing," Jean said quietly, as though in a trance. "This is the only way."

Logan turned around to find the source of her voice. His eyes rested on Xavier, sitting perfectly relaxed in his seat. His eyes were closed and he even wore a lazy smile. It certainly couldn't have been him speaking, and it only took a second for Logan to realize that Jean was speaking to them through Xavier.

How had she become so powerful? Six weeks ago she had admitted that she didn't have the strength to hold Logan steady in the air. Now she was lifting a jet, preventing billions of gallons of water from sweeping them away, and controlling Xavier's mind. All at once. That crack about meditation making her stronger had been bullshit. Something drastic had happened to her, and Logan had the sinking feeling that this was only a quick glimpse of the power she had inside her. It'd be the only glimpse they got if she didn't find a way to get herself back inside the jet.

But if she was capable of all of this, she could certainly save herself, couldn't she? She could lift herself off the ground and sit on top of the jet, entering from the top hatch. Or she could wrap herself in the invisible barrier she had up, shielding herself from the pressure and simply wait for the water to calm before swimming to the surface. She could save herself. She could save the child inside her.

_Then why isn't she doing this from _inside _the jet?_ Logan's blood ran cold. She had said so herself through Xavier. _"This is the only way."_

Scott had pushed past Logan again and was kneeling in front of Xavier, at his wit's end. "Jean," he whispered shakily. "Listen to me. Don't do this."

For a heartbreaking moment, Logan wondered if he knew that Jean was pregnant. She'd just noticed last night when he'd told her, and there was a very good chance that Scott didn't know. In fact, Logan was almost certain that he didn't know. Scott was fighting to save Jean, not Jean and his child. Were he aware that he was fighting for both their lives, Logan knew that Scott would abandon all common sense and tear the jet apart to get to her.

"I have to do this," Xavier whispered in Jean's voice. "Good-bye."

Logan stepped back, still refusing to believe that she would do this. "Oh, no! _No_!"

"_No! NO!_" Scott echoed, returning to the window to watch Jean. Logan, Scott and Ororo watched helplessly as Jean's movement seemed to become slower and more controlled. She began glowing orange and soon it looked as though she were fully engulfed in flames. Her power was vibrating in the air like a pulse, and even from such a distance, even through the thick walls of the jet, Logan's lungs burned with the scent of cinnamon.

As the jet climbed higher, the flames pulsing around her body became weaker, as did her scent. When it seemed that the jet was high enough above the water, Jean dropped her arms and her scent completely vanished. Before she disappeared, Logan felt a wave of relief hit him, and he knew instantly that it had come from Jean. She was tired, and relieved to have the water carry her away.

Logan stared numbly at the place she'd been standing only moments ago. "S-she's gone," he said weakly. "She's gone."

"Don't you say that!" Scott screeched, throwing himself at Logan and hitting him with everything he had. "We have to go back!"

"She's gone," he said again, hardly bothering to defend himself against Scott's attack. "There's nothing to go back to."

That statement seemed to hit Scott like a ton of bricks. "No! We need to… we can…" Scott collapsed in Logan's arms, sobbing violently. "She's _not!_"

Logan fought back tears. Scott was breaking down, on the verge of hysteria; Xavier's mind was his own again and he sat, weeping silently; a few of the children in the back had begun to fearfully cry and Marie was sobbing in Bobby's arms. Lee sat perfectly still, glaring at the children around her. It was clear that she was determined not to cry, to be strong for everyone else. Despite the sacrifice she was making for them, none of them seemed to notice or care.

Ororo was fighting too. Logan glanced down and saw that her eyes were filled with tears, but she refused to blink, refused to shed them. She busied herself with pushing random buttons on her control panel, clearly for something to focus on.

Logan had let Scott slump to the floor long ago. No amount of comforting would ever put his heart back together, and Logan knew that he was the last person Scott would look to for comfort. Still standing behind Ororo's seat, Logan leaned down and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Her entire body became rigid for a few seconds before she relaxed and covered his hand with hers.

"The lord is my shepherd," Kurt recited quietly. "I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in green pastures. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…"

"For thou art with me," Ororo whispered with him.

After a long, silent moment, she tapped Logan's arm to tell him to let go. He did so with reluctance, looking down on her from above. He knew that she was trying to keep her pain inside for the sake of others (Scott was still crying his heart out on the floor behind them), but he couldn't help feeling that she deserved to cry just as much as he did.

Today, she'd lost both a son and a sister. While Logan didn't feel quite as strongly about John, the fact that he'd left with Magneto upset him. And Jean… He didn't want to think about how much that hurt right now. Too much was happening at once. He felt overloaded, and he didn't want to cry. Perhaps Ororo felt the same. If holding in her sadness was second nature to her, as it was to him, then despite the fact that she'd lost a son and a sister, maybe she didn't want to cry. He could only speculate as he continued watching her.

Ororo took a deep breath and began punching different buttons on her control panel. Logan glimpsed the back of her neck as she leaned forward and grimaced. Inhaling deeply, he confirmed what his eyes had already told him. "You're hurt," he said softly.

"It's nothing," she replied evenly. "When Dark Cerebro was targeting us, I wasn't in control of my powers. Some bolts of lightning hit me and I wasn't immune to them. They sting a little, but I'm fine."

Logan briefly flashed back to his own episode on the ground when all his wounds had reopened. During Cerebro's wave, Ororo must have created lightning with the same effect as his own claws had had on him. Electrical burns could be nasty, and he wondered how badly she'd hurt herself.

He stepped over Scott and sat in the co-pilot's chair, staring straight at her. She was leaning forward in her seat, sitting as tall and straight as a statue, as though she were extremely uncomfortable. Her face showed no signs of pain, but that didn't mean much when nerves had potentially been damaged. If that were the case, she _really_ needed to have her burns looked at.

"_Your blood," _Xavier said.

Logan waited for more, but his mind remained silent. _What about it?_

"_Your blood is the reason that you heal. Any cut or scrape that you receive bleeds, and your blood closes the wound. Your blood will close her wounds."_

Logan frowned. _So, what? She has to drink it?_ Though the thought disgusted him, if it would help…

"No," he said out loud. He sounded far more tired than he had while in Logan's mind. Logan wondered exactly what Xavier had endured in the time that he'd been there, but perhaps he didn't want to know. "Ingesting it won't help her in this instance. The burns are on her back."

"I said it's nothing," she snapped.

"Third-degree burns are not 'nothing,' Ororo," he snapped back. "You can let his blood heal you now or you can risk an infection by letting it fester for a few hours. Either way, the healing process will be painful, but it can last minutes or months."

Xavier must've been tired, because it slipped from his mind and into Logan's that Ororo shouldn't go out of her way to be a martyr when others were hurting. He also felt that she was being stubborn and unreasonable for no reason at all, and a physical injury was something that could quickly be taken care of. Logan agreed, but he didn't necessarily think that Ororo was trying to be a martyr. Perhaps she truly believed that her injuries weren't that bad. Xavier had clearly stated that she had third-degree burns, but maybe she thought he was overreacting.

In any case, she punched a few buttons and got up from her seat. Logan eyed at the controls skeptically before following her into the small changing space inside one of the walls. It was roomy enough for one person, but for two, it was a bit of a pinch. Without a word, Ororo unclasped her cape and turned her back to Logan. He heard her unzip her uniform from the front and she gingerly pulled it off her shoulders, sliding it all the way down until her entire back was left bare. Logan tried not to gasp.

Nearly her every inch of her skin was ripped open, burned and charred. The inside of her suit was sticky with blood, and it smelled horrid. Near the base of her neck, bone was nearly sticking out. It was a wonder she hadn't passed out yet.

"That bad," she asked quietly.

"Worse," he whispered back, unsure of how to help her. Xavier had said that she didn't have to drink his blood to heal, but hadn't elaborated further than that. Maybe if he rubbed it into her back? If his blood healed his cuts, then he needed to bleed in order for his wounds to heal. So if his blood found its way to her wounds, then they should heal as well. That made sense.

He popped one of his claws out and glanced at her back apologetically. "You should probably bend over. And brace yourself. No one knows how much this hurts more than I do." She did as she was told, leaning on one arm heavily against the wall, and with the other she reached around and grabbed Logan's thigh, gripping tightly.

Logan regretted how much pain he was about to put her through.

Holding his wrist over the middle of her back, Logan cut deeply into one of his veins and let his blood pool into her wounds. She didn't move at first, but the second he saw the burns begin to heal, she gripped his thigh hard enough to cause bruising. She gasped and was visibly shaking, but she held herself as still as possible.

His cut healed after a few long seconds, and when the healing of her burns began to slow, he did it again, moving his arm to another area that was badly burned. She made no sound this time, but gripped his leg tighter still and shocks of electricity ran up his spine. He jumped, but didn't make her let go of him. The small snaps she was accidentally sending him couldn't compare to the pain she was feeling.

They continued like this for a few more minutes until most of her back was healed. Logan cut his wrist once more, not quite as deep, and spread it all over her back, rubbing it in until it disappeared and she was completely healed.

For a moment they didn't move. Ororo was taking deep, shaky breaths and her fingers were still clamped around his thigh. Her grip was tight enough to cut off circulation and possibly snap it off, but he wasn't sure if he should ask her to loosen her grip. He shifted his weight uncomfortably and she immediately let go. He'd be limping for a few minutes, at the very least.

She slowly stood up straight, no doubt sore. She flexed her shoulders and stretched her back, and despite the fact that he knew she was in pain, Logan couldn't help staring. Her skin looked so much smoother than Mystique's replication, so much more luminous. He didn't dare imagine how velvet smooth it would feel without his slick blood underneath, because he knew that his imagination couldn't possibly compare to the real thing.

He was brought back to earth when she pulled her suit back over her shoulders and zipped it up. She sighed, her shoulders hanging low. Logan reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, and she immediately turned and slumped against his chest. He caught her and held still, afraid that she'd pull away from him.

She took a few deep breaths, allowing Logan to hold her. After a few minutes, she looked up into his eyes, her own nearly gray. They were shining with pain. He wasn't sure what she needed from him, and he wished that she'd tell him. Just as he was going to open his mouth to ask, she spoke. "Is this your idea of being shaped into the people we're meant to become?" she whispered.

Logan, again, felt that pressure behind his eyes that meant he was about to cry. She didn't have to explain what she meant. He very clearly remembered their discussion from the night before.

"_Maybe your past hurts, but it's shaped you into the person that you are."_

"_Maybe underneath all of that shaping is the person that I was meant to be."_

"_Or maybe He specifically shaped you into the person you were meant to be."_

At a time like this, he didn't know what he could say that would make even the smallest difference to her. She was tired, she was in pain, and her heart ached. Did he have to say anything? He could show her…

Show her what?

Despite the layer of thick fabric between them, she fit against him seamlessly. She was, once again, close enough to kiss. He could drop a kiss on her lips before she knew what hit her. But what purpose would that serve? She seemed too vulnerable for that kind of action right now. She trusted him enough to let him hold her while she was in this vulnerable state. He wasn't going to betray that trust. She needed strength, and he wasn't sure exactly how he was supposed to give it to her.

He heard Kurt through the thin doors, still muttering various scriptures under his breath in German, and one stood out from the others. Ororo had said that a little faith would do both her and John – Pyro – some good. Perhaps faith was what she needed most right now.

"I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us," he recited quietly. "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose."

She gazed intensely into his eyes and tucked her head under his chin, taking another deep breath. He kissed the top of her head and held her tighter. Somehow, the way they held each other in that moment was far more intimate than a quick kiss would have been.

After a long moment – though it was much too short for Logan – Ororo pulled away, slipping out of the changing space without looking at him. By the time Logan stepped out, she was already at the front of the jet, back in her seat. Scott was back in the co-pilots chair, rigid as a statue and staring out into space.

Logan sat back in his usual seat, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. He wiped his face with a heavy sigh, and frowned when he saw that his cheeks were wet. He'd cried without even knowing it.

He decided that that was nothing to be ashamed of.


	46. Best Possible Way

For your reading pleasure... enjoy!!

* * *

Logan marched down the gleaming silver halls to the hanger in what felt like slow motion. His perception of time had been all over the place for the past four days. Hours were instantaneous, yet seconds were everlasting. And he hadn't slept a wink the entire time. He hadn't bothered trying. It seemed that every time he closed his eyes he saw _her_ standing in front of a wall of water, whispering that her sacrifice was the only way to save their lives.

None of the X-Men wanted to be anywhere near the jet. No one needed to vocalize that feeling; Xavier had surly realized by the stiff silence that had followed his declaration that they were going to the White House that no one was thrilled about going. The president would be addressing the United States in a few hours and Xavier had insisted that they needed to speak to him before then. Using the jet was an unfortunate necessity.

Logan didn't fully understand why _all_ of them needed to be there, but he was honestly too tired to argue. He was too tired to do much of anything lately. But he forced his body into motion and his healing factor kicked away most of the physical fatigue. He wondered if the lack of rest for his mind was causing him to slowly inch towards insanity, but there was no immediate help for that.

Tugging at his gloves for lack of anything else to do, he hesitantly boarded the jet. His lungs were immediately assaulted with Ororo's rainforest scent. She was the only other person on the jet, and for some reason that knowledge made Logan ill at ease. Since their embrace a few days ago, she'd carefully avoided interaction of any kind with him. He didn't know if she was embarrassed or if she just needed space or what her problem was. He did, however, know that he didn't like being deprived of her company when she was literally within arm's reach. But he kept his distance for her sake, since it seemed that that's what she wanted.

Logan sat in his usual seat behind her and strapped himself in without a word. He breathed as little as possible, her scent making him drowsy. He'd discovered that, while he could lie in bed from dusk to dawn and be unable to fall asleep, the scent she radiated made him nearly fall asleep on his feet. It had happened more than once when they'd been forced to be in the same room together, and it was maddening to think that the remedy to his lack of sleep was to be surrounded by her scent.

And the fact that she seemed to be breaking her back to avoid him only fueled his annoyance.

It wasn't just that she refused his contact, but that she seemed to refuse contact of almost any kind, save Scott. To Logan, it seemed as though she was trying to be strong for everyone, and yet she offered no one comfort, except for Scott. Again. She frequently slipped into his room, usually to bring him food, but it didn't escape Logan's notice that she stayed in there for hours at a time. He wouldn't exactly say that he was jealous, however. A man like Scott didn't fall into that kind of depression over one woman and seek comfort for the pain by seducing another. Nor did Ororo seem the type to offer him that type of comfort.

No, what annoyed Logan was that he wanted to comfort her, but she wouldn't allow it. Not from him, and possibly not from Scott either. Her expression held the same stoic set both when she entered and exited Scott's room. She was exhausting her energy in an attempt to comfort a man that needed to find comfort in his own way. Logan didn't know Scott very well, but he had always seemed like the type of man that didn't like others to hover over him when he was feeling weak.

And Jean's death had weakened all of them. Logan didn't know if Jean had been the bright and sunny type on any given day at the mansion, but everyone could feel that something was missing with her gone.

Logan sighed as he smothered that train of thought. Everyone was sad and somber enough without him adding to it.

"How are you doing?" Ororo asked quietly.

Logan nearly jumped out of his skin. He wasn't sure if he should be surprised or overjoyed that she'd spoken to him. After a second of internal debate, he settled for cautious. "Well enough," he said carefully.

He saw her nod her head. "That's good," she whispered, her tone devoid of emotion. And just like that, Logan knew that she was shutting herself down, pulling away from the world. He had the sudden impulse to grab her. He wanted to hug her, kiss her, _shake_ her! He didn't care if she cried or punched him in the face! _Anything_ was better than pulling the hurricane under the surface and attempting to fight it off alone.

Simply having a friend wasn't enough to help a person, and Logan seemed to be the only one willing to offer Ororo any kind of help. No, perhaps that wasn't completely true. Xavier had tried to poke around in her mind at Logan's request, just to see if she was worse on the inside than she was on the outside. The result had been a fierce migraine that Xavier had been kind enough to share with Logan for a few minutes.

"Electricity is one of the most powerful elements that she wields," Xavier had quietly explained to Logan. Meanwhile, Logan had been rubbing his hypersensitive ears while trying his best to convince himself that Xavier wasn't shouting at the top of his lungs. "It courses through her, and she can use the static to create a sort of psychic barrier. The result is that her thoughts sound like a bad radio signal, and trying to decipher the thoughts under it can be… tiresome."

That had been putting it mildly. Xavier had told him that she'd only resorted to that sort of privacy once before, when she'd first arrived at his school. At first, Logan hadn't understood how that bit of information was at all helpful. Then he remembered that she'd mentioned that her heartbreaking separation from T'Challa had been right before coming to the mansion.

His hands clenched into fists without his permission. Thinking of how that man had once made her nearly as upset as she was now would only make Logan's blood boil. Right now, what he needed most was patience. What _she_ needed most was his patience.

He unstrapped himself, tossed his gloves off, and knelt beside her seat, looking up at her. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes. The once vibrant cerulean had lost its brilliance. Her eyes were now a sea of gray, clouds that only hinted at a violent storm. When she wouldn't spare him more than a glance, he grabbed her chin and gently but forcefully turned her towards him. That small gesture was enough to make her eyes brighten, if only a little. They brightened with annoyance, but he'd take what he could get.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked softly.

She blinked. "What exactly is it that I'm doing?" she countered.

"Unless I'm mistaken, your heart isn't made of ice. I know that you're hurting. Everyone is hurting…"

"I'm not the one that needs to be comforted," she said firmly. "I don't need a strong shoulder to cry on."

"You are, quite possibly, the last person who needs that," he agreed. "But that doesn't mean that you need to take it upon yourself to be strong for everyone else. Maybe you don't want to cry. I can understand that. Maybe you don't _like_ to cry. I can _really_ understand that. But that doesn't mean that you don't need a moment to be weak."

She grabbed his hand and pulled it away from her chin, yet she didn't let go. She wasn't wearing her gloves either, and her skin was cold against his. Her grip, however, wasn't as firm as it usually was. Instead, it was gentle, almost questioning. After a long moment of simply staring into his eyes, Ororo's eyes widened considerably. "I _can't_," she whispered. She squeezed his hand, to the point of pain. Shocks raced from his fingers through his entire system, harsh and unrelenting.

In relation to a storm, her reaction seemed to be the slight pick up of wind before a tornado lifted a two story house from the ground. His sense of where her emotions were going was almost as keen as his perception of the changing weather. An interesting observation, and one that he was surprised he hadn't thought of before. But now wasn't the time to dwell on it.

He didn't pull away, and he didn't let his features betray that she was hurting him. She wouldn't do it on purpose, of that he was certain. But all of her pent up frustration needed an outlet of some kind, and if she refused to cry then maybe the next best thing was frying something.

"If I start crying," she continued, "I _know_ I won't stop." She leaned forward, her eyes nearly glowing. The pain he saw was staggering. Enough so that he forgot about the physical pain she was unwittingly inflicting on him. "I don't just need a moment to be weak, Logan. I could deal with that. I need a moment to break apart completely. And I don't want someone to have to put me back together."

"What if they don't feel like they _have_ to put you back together? What if I genuinely _want_ to?" Logan realized his mistake a second before she did. He had been prepared to say more, but found himself at a loss for words at his slip of the tongue.

As for Ororo, she blinked slowly and averted her eyes. "I have a lot of ugly scars," she muttered cryptically.

He wasn't the least bit deterred. Knowing that he had once worked in close proximity with Stryker was enough to let him know that he had a few scars of his own. "I have a whole damn army of skeletons to discover," he said flatly. "You're scars don't scare me."

"Nothing does."

"So many things do," he insisted. "Like the thought that, no matter how much I want to, you refuse to let me help you. The fact that you might shatter under the weight you're piling on top of yourself. The fact that you _could_ shatter, and that no one would be willing to cut themselves in an effort to put you back together."

"And you would do that?" she asked skeptically. "You would bleed for me?"

He knew that she was speaking metaphorically, but then, so was he. "Until I was drained," he said without hesitation.

The emotions in her eyes shifted, and angry tears formed in her eyes. "I don't get it, Logan," she growled, her jaw tight. She leaned forward as if to challenge him. "I've told you that I neither want nor need your help…"

He leaned forward as well, meeting her head-on. "And you've just as stubbornly refused that help. You can't push someone away if they truly care."

They fell silent and simply stared intensely at each other. He was so intent on studying the emotions behind her eyes that he didn't realize that she'd let go of his hand and that the shocks had stopped. He was too caught up in his thoughts to notice that she was leaning half of her body over the chair. She moved too quickly for him to register that ice cool hands were both gripping the back of his neck. She looked too angry to want anything but distance between them, yet she pulled on his neck roughly, jerking him forward. He nearly yelped in surprise, but her mouth on his robbed him of all oxygen.

Her lips, like her hands, were cold, dry, and so impossibly soft that it made him dizzy. She didn't move, possibly wanting him to make the next move. He ran his hands up her arms, unsure of what she needed from him. When air became absolutely necessary, he inhaled deeply through his nose.

Which robbed him of all thought.

Her scent went right to his head, driving him closer to insanity then he'd ever been in his life. His hands were in the thick of her hair in an instant, pulling her closer to him just as roughly as she had. Their mouths began moving in sync, as though both knew, instinctively, what the other wanted of them. Their breathing became ragged in a matter of seconds. Though they were only kissing, Logan felt as though something within him was being pulled apart in the best possible way.

He ran his fingers through her hair, amazed at how thick it felt, yet it was so smooth and silky too. His skin felt feverishly hot, like fire was running through his veins, while her skin was as cold and refreshing as ice water. The temperatures combined to create an overwhelming sensation wherever their skin met.

Their movements slowly became less desperate and more languid. Each time he inhaled, her scent slowly drove away the world until he forgot what his own name was. One of his hands slid down her back, stopping to rest on her hip. She responded by running both of her hands down his chest, stopping over his wildly beating heart. Her tongue slipped past his lips and electricity shot through his system again. He moaned into her mouth, his claws jumping out of his knuckles with a loud _snickt._

He was immediately pulled out of his fog, scrambling away from her in terror. His claws didn't show a hint of blood, but that didn't necessarily mean that he hadn't harmed her. _God above, if I hurt her in any way..._

"I'm fine," she said hurriedly. "I'm perfectly fine."

Well, she appeared _unharmed_, at least.

As she stared at him intensely, he noticed that her pupils were dilated and her irises nearly silver. She panted softly, her eyes never leaving his as she came down from her own high. When she seemed to have gained control of herself again, she glanced at his claws, as though remembering that they were the reason Logan had pulled away. She raked her fingers through her hair gingerly, and pulled out a few sizable chunks of white hair.

But there wasn't a hint of red. He hadn't hurt her. Logan felt dizzy with relief as he sighed and righted himself on the floor, sheathing his claws. Somehow she had ended up on the floor with him, though he wasn't sure when that had happened. She was on her knees as well, sitting back on her calves and studying her severed locks. With little interest, she shrugged and shoved it into one of her many pockets.

"I guess I'm due for a haircut soon," she said flatly.

"You two need a minute?"

Both Logan and Ororo turned around to see Bobby rooted to the spot, halfway up the ramp. Logan briefly wondered how much he had seen, but decided that it didn't matter. If he insisted that he was old enough to go on missions, then he should certainly be old enough to see two people kissing without it being awkward and uncomfortable. To his credit, Bobby seemed to be neither, so Logan guessed that he'd seen nothing but the two of them kneeling on the floor staring at each other. Either that or he was much more mature than Logan ever would have guessed. Again, it didn't matter.

Without a word, Ororo reached over and placed her hand on Logan's shoulder, pushing herself up off the ground. When she stood at her full height, she reached her hand down to Logan. "We're fine," she told Bobby, her eyes never leaving Logan's.

Logan took her offered hand, which he was grateful for when he realized that his knees were shaking slightly. He felt Bobby climb aboard but paid him little attention. He stared hard at Ororo, and she stared right back. He noticed, with some despair, that she'd slipped her mask back into place. If anything, he could at least be satisfied that she'd lowered it, if only for a little while.

"I'm fine," she said firmly, turning away from him and settling herself into the pilot's seat.

Logan sighed and sat down as well while the rest of the team began filing in. It certainly wasn't a victory, but it wasn't a total defeat. She'd opened up to him, for the briefest of moments. Perhaps that kiss had meant nothing to her. Perhaps it had meant everything.

He bit his lip, missing the feel of her lips against his. He knew, without a doubt, that he would never get enough of that feeling. He would always want more. He would always want to be closer to her. He would forever be annoyingly addicted to the scent of her skin. He wondered if perhaps he'd made a mistake in kissing her, but decided that there was no help for that now. Besides, if they'd gone any longer suppressing those feelings that they'd let out, they might have made an even bigger mistake.

He closed his eyes only for an instant and saw the way she'd been looking at him when he'd pulled away. Eyes burning silver, breathing heavily, the burning desire to bring him back to her that was barely concealed... If not for Bobby, he might've waited a few seconds more before saying the hell with it and grabbing her again...

He bit his lip harder, drawing blood that he quickly wiped away. He couldn't think about that right now. They were headed to the White House to speak with the president of the United States. While Logan had nothing at all to say to the man, for all intents and purposes, they were on a mission. For the moment, that was all that mattered.

But he did – for the duration of the flight, at least – let himself indulge in the fact that a reaction like hers to their kiss had to have meant _something_.


	47. We'll Be Watching

Getting inside the White House wasn't as difficult as Logan would have guessed. Of course, everyone on staff was human, so perhaps that's why they had little trouble. Xavier used his telepathy to 'pause' everyone and all of the security cameras while they passed through the many halls towards the president, unnoticed.

Once outside the Oval Office, Xavier nodded to Ororo, who used her power to darken the sky outside with little effort. The X-Men entered to find that everyone, the president included, had been stilled. Everyone took up a specific spot, spreading themselves apart. When the shuffling ceased, Xavier lifted his cloud off of the president. A bolt of lighting illuminated the room and he jumped when he finally saw the seven strangers.

"Good afternoon, Mr. President," Xavier said politely. The president's pulse rose as his eyes rested on each and every one of the mutants. He moved to get up. "Please, don't be alarmed," the professor continued calmly. "We're not here to harm anyone. Quite the contrary."

"Who are you people?" he demanded.

"We're mutants. My name is Charles Xavier, and these are the X-Men. Please, sit down."

"I'd rather stand."

Xavier nodded. "Very well. Rogue?"

Logan discreetly watched Marie as she stepped forward and placed a file folder on the president's desk. Part of him was proud to see her wearing an X-Men uniform, but another part of him wondered why the hell she was here if her only job was to set files on the desk. Bobby didn't have a specific task either, nor did Scott, Kurt, or himself. Logan guessed that their job was just to be seen. The president needed to know that mutants were as varied as humans are, and that there was an entire team of them on his side.

The president shied away from her, but because of her power, Marie was more than used to it and shrugged it off. Logan doubted that the president knew her power anyway. Marie backed away to her spot near Bobby as Xavier wheeled a little closer to the desk. The president slowly grabbed the files, but didn't take his eyes off of Xavier for a second.

"Those files were taken from the private offices of William Stryker," the professor explained.

"And how did you get them?" he asked with accusing eyes.

"Let's just say I know a little girl who can walk through walls."

The younger man didn't seem the least bit amused by that. "And where is Stryker?"

"Regrettably, no longer with us."

Logan snorted at that, causing the president to nearly jump out of his skin. "You killed him?!"

The president wasn't specifically addressing Logan, and so he decided not to answer that question. Xavier gave his mind a nudge to show his gratitude and returned all of his focus to the president. "He was killed, yes," he said carefully, "while trying to annihilate every person on the globe who possesses the mutant gene."

At that, the president's eyes widened, as though he were now beginning to understand the enormity of what had almost happened without his knowledge. Logan wanted to be angry at the president, but he couldn't fault ignorance. He himself had been unaware of the worldwide genocide Stryker had been planning until only last week. Hell, he'd been unaware of the name Stryker last week.

The president sat down roughly. "My God. Do you think I would – do you think I _could_ – sanction such a thing?"

Logan had the urge to snort again. _Why not give it a try_, he thought sarcastically. _It's worked _wonders _in the past…_

"If I believed such a thing sir, we wouldn't be talking right now," Xavier replied kindly, motioning to the files from Stryker.

The president began flipping through the files, speed reading it appeared. The more he saw, the deeper his frown became. "I've never seen this information."

"I know," Xavier replied.

The president's eyes snapped up and fixed Xavier and the rest of the X-Men with a glare. "Then you also know that I don't respond well to threats."

Xavier leaned forward in his chair. "Mr. President, this is not a threat. This is an opportunity." He motioned the bust of John Kennedy that sat proudly on the president's desk. "I remember those days just as you do, and the fear that came with them. That, through not fault or action of our own, the world would end. It wouldn't even be a matter of someone's choice. It could just as easily happen as a mistake.

"You and I, Mr. President, and the people we represent, have had a taste of our own version of doomsday. How close did we all come to the abyss? And what have we learned from that terrible experience? John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev found a way to lay the foundation for a lasting peace between their two nations – or at least a way to lessen the possibility of outright war. So why can't we try to do the same?

"I realize" – he pointed to another stack of files on the president's desk – "you may have information about me, my school, and our people. Grown mutants like me, like the X-Men, like… Magneto, are but a comparative handful. Most mutants are children." He motioned to Bobby and Marie. "And what are children, but the promise of the future made flesh? What shall we promise our posterity? A world based on hate and fear, whose ultimate outcome is a genetic civil war that will likely be the death of us all? Or can we find a better way?

"As we've seen firsthand, there are forces in this world, both mutant and human alike, who believe that a war is coming. That it is inevitable. You'll see in those files how diligently some have worked over the years to start one… and there have been casualties."

Logan's gaze briefly wandered in Scott's direction. The man's face was set in stone, the same blank look he'd had since they'd gotten off the jet four days ago. Logan looked to his other side at Ororo. Her expression was just as flat, but her eyes were clouded with white. Though she was struggling to help Scott through this tough time, it seemed to Logan that she was the one who had lost the most. His heart ached for her.

"There have been losses on both sides," Xavier continued. "What you were about to tell the world is true; this _is_ a moment, a moment to repeat the mistakes of the past, or to work together for a better future. I'm willing to trust you, Mr. President, if you're willing to return the favor. Do you understand?"

The president studied Xavier with a hard gaze, as though sizing him up. After a long moment, he finally nodded slowly. "Yes. I think I do."

"I'm glad," Xavier told him. He gestured to the X-Men. "We're here to stay, Mr. President. The next move is yours."

"_He may need a little extra assurance,"_ Xavier said to Logan.

"We'll be watching," Logan added with a hair-raising smile. Ororo produced a loud thunderclap outside. The president's eyes widened and then his entire body froze.

"Very good," Xavier said quietly. "We're done here." No one needed any more encouragement than that to leave the room and let the president address the country.


	48. We're Intense People

Wow! Well, that was quite a bit longer than The Scent of a Storm, but I had a lot of fun with it. This is, of course, where Caught in the Storm ends, but never fear! Next comes Part Three, which is going to bridge the gap between X2 and X3. I've got a rough idea of where I want it to go (so rough that the majority of it is on sticky notes!) but there will be a Part Three! However, I'm going to devote a little more time to the fam this holiday season, as _everyone_ seems to be having some sort of major surgery...

That's not to say that I won't update. I just won't be able to do it as often. I'm going to shoot for once a week, though I make no promises. Well, if I go an entire month without updating, you can break down my door. Fair enough?

Oh and thank you to any and everyone who's read this story this far. It's because of all of you that I've been able to write this much! Enjoy!

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The jet was silent for the duration of the ride home. It was a thoughtful silence and no one seemed willing to break it until they landed in the hanger. As everyone busied themselves with getting off of the get, Logan felt Xavier touch his mind.

"_I'd like to see you in my office after you've changed out of your uniform,"_ he said. Logan simply nodded, sure that the old man could feel that Logan had no dispute.

He wandered down the gleaming halls to the changing area on auto-pilot. He wasn't thinking about anything in particular, mostly because he didn't want to. Thinking about anything only caused pain, but thinking about nothing brought a comforting numbness to his heart. He was beginning to understand why Ororo insisted on wearing a mask of indifference.

He dressed at a snail's pace and wandered into Xavier's office, mildly surprised to see that Ororo and Scott were also there. The former was leaning against the window frame, staring out the window with her back to Logan, while the latter was leaning against a tall bookshelf and glaring at the carpet. Xavier himself was seated in front of his desk, rubbing his temples.

"This is something that we need to talk about," Xavier began. "Pretending that she isn't gone isn't going to help any of us heal from the pain of her death."

"What would you have us talk about," Scott demanded in a hallow voice.

"We have to remember all of the good that she brought into our lives," the professor replied. "Right now the mention of her brings mostly pain, yes. But if we continue to associate her memory with the pain that we feel right now, all she'll become is just that; a memory of pain."

Logan quietly sat on the arm of the couch, nodding. If anyone knew about the inner workings of the mind, it was Xavier. _Although, _Logan thought to himself, _the old bastard certainly keeps enough secrets to himself. _He was still angry with Xavier for withholding information from him simply because he thought he ought to.

Xavier threw Logan a pointed look. _"We can talk about that later. This isn't about you right now."_

_That's why I didn't say it out loud, _Logan countered. He wasn't as selfish as everyone made him out to be. He certainly didn't _want_ this to be about him, but he wasn't going to apologize for what went on inside his own mind. If Xavier didn't want to hear what Logan was thinking, then he could to stay the hell out.

"It's pretty amazing, the way she saved us, isn't it?" Both Xavier and Logan turned to stare at Ororo's back. "I never knew she had that much power in her."

"You know," Xavier put in, "even when Jean was a student, she was always hesitant about her powers. Always looking to others, feeling that in some way she was left behind."

Ororo nodded. "And, if only for a few minutes, she was able to surpass all of us."

Logan again looked to Scott for a reaction. The man's jaw tightened slightly, but he gave no other outward indications of his internal strain. "Do you think…" Scott took a shaky breath and tried again. "Could we have done more to save her?"

Xavier frowned thoughtfully. "In the past, she may have let us," he said carefully.

"What changed?" Logan whispered, more to himself than to anyone else. "Why did she leave the jet?"

Xavier turned to Logan. "Because she made a choice."

"And we need to honor that choice by making sure that she didn't die in vain to save us," Ororo said quietly.

There was a knock at the door and Xavier called for them to enter. As the children began filing in - probably for class - Xavier nodded to the elder X-Men, letting them know that they could leave. Logan, Scott, and Ororo slowly left the office in silence. Ororo turned left, while Scott turned right. Logan turned right as well, intending to tell Scott what had been burning on his mind ever since Jean had died.

"Hey." Scott didn't respond, and Logan had to catch Scott's arm to finally turn him around. Etched across his face was the fatigue, sadness, stress and torment of a man much older than Scott. And Logan couldn't even see his eyes. In that instant, Logan lost his nerve. He didn't have the heart to tell Scott that he might've been a father. It would be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Thinking fast for an excuse as to why he'd stopped Scott, Logan then remembered that Scott had felt threatened by him when it came to his relationship with Jean. Perhaps Scott didn't really believe that there had been anything between the two of them, but Jean's actions had said otherwise. And as far as Logan knew, she'd died without telling Scott that, at the end of it all, Scott had come out on top in her heart.

"Listen," he began. "She did make a choice. She chose you."

Scott swallowed hard, his face twisting in momentary torment. It was gone in an instant, and replaced with a frightening fury. Logan might've stepped back if he'd believed that Scott might actually do him harm. Well, he did believe that Scott _wanted _to do him harm, but he doubted that Scott had the will to to do it at the moment.

"You're goddamn right, she chose me," he whispered heatedly. "Let's get something straight; I don't need you to offer me a shoulder to cry on. I've cried my tears, and I'll make my peace with her death on my own time. I don't need you, or the professor, or Storm to hover over me like a fragile doll that's ready to break at any minute."

Logan felt his own temper begin to flare. "I don't recall offering you a shoulder to cry on, and I sure as hell don't hover over you."

"We only want to help, Scott," Ororo said from Logan's side. "We need to stick together, now more than ever."

"What do you mean, 'we?' Logan doesn't give a damn about anyone from himself. Please don't tell me that you think that he can be relied on to do anything other than disappear."

"You didn't seem to miss me," Logan snapped.

"You stole my bike, asshole. What did you want, a hug?"

"Stop it," Ororo snapped. "You two are acting like children."

"I can't say that that surprises me," he said, towering over her. "You certainly treat me like one. You come into my room everyday acting like I'm a bomb that's about to go off."

"I can't imagine why I might think that," she spat back.

"I'm sick of you hovering over me, Ororo. You think that just because Jean's dead then you might have a chance with me?"

A nasty snarl rose from the depths of Logan's chest as he moved to step toe-to-toe with Scott, but Ororo acted faster than he could. Her arm was already up and she backhanded Scott with a loud clap. His glasses flew off of his face and his eyes were squeezed shut, his head turned to the side.

Ororo's eyes were clouded with white, and a soft breeze brushed over the three. The hairs on Logan's neck raised and he suppressed a shudder, as well as the urge to put some distance between himself and the weather witch.

"How dare you," she whispered in his ear. "You think you're the only one that's hurting? You think you're the only person that loved Jean? And you think that I'm callous enough to try to seduce you _days_ after her death? I was trying to comfort a friend, but if you'd rather starve yourself and rot in your room alone, be my fucking guest!" She stormed down the hall without glancing back, and Logan was left shocked in front of him.

He thought about leaving Scott to fend for himself. He wanted to turn around and follow after Ororo, stepping right over Scott's glasses along the way – or perhaps on them. He could hardly believe that Scott would think such a thing about Ororo. Scott wasn't stupid. He had to know that Ororo was only trying to help him. So why on earth had he lashed out at her instead of Logan? It made more sense that Scott would want to snap off at Logan - as he had - but to turn on Ororo like that...

Logan shook his head as he slowly picked up Scott's glasses and shoved them in his hands, walking away. If Scott wanted to go through this alone, so be it. Logan sure the hell wasn't going to bend over backwards trying to be a friend to him, and it seemed that Ororo had more or less washed her hands of trying to help him as well.

It then occurred to Logan that Ororo truly had no one. Jean was gone, John was gone, and Scott - the Scott that was her friend - was gone. He'd be damned if he let Ororo share the same fate as Scott. Perhaps Scott wanted to be alone, but Logan knew deep down that Ororo didn't want to be alone.

He caught her scent and followed it to her closed door. He debated the pros and cons of knocking on her door or just going in. He lost his nerve when the cons began to outweigh the pros and knocked on her door.

"_What_," she snapped.

Logan jumped. "It's not Scott," he tried.

There was a long pause before he heard shuffling on the other side. She opened the door and looked him up and down before leaning against the frame. "What," she asked again, her voice softer.

He wasn't sure of what he wanted to say to her, but he didn't have to think for long. The words came pouring out of him before he realized that this had been bothering him. "You're doing the same thing he's doing," he told her. "You're pushing away the people that want to help you most. He probably did a better job of it just now..."

"Person," she muttered.

"Say again?"

She sighed heavily and looked away from him. "The reason I've been trying so hard to push you away is because... really, you're the _only_ one that's tried to help me."

Logan nodded. "And I got through to you today, if only for a moment. Wasn't it a relief to break a little bit?"

"That was barely a crack," she cut in, fixing him with a bitter smile. "I wanted to know if you could handle it. Honestly, I'm still not sure that you can. I know for a fact that I can't let myself be that vulnerable yet, but that isn't necessarily your problem. It's my insecurity that I need to deal with."

His jaw tightened. He didn't want to know where that insecurity had come from, but he had an idea that it had come from T'Challa. _I hope you rot in hell,_ he thought viciously.

Then he replayed what she'd just said. Had she said 'yet'?

"You were right about me, though." She pushed herself off of the door frame and stepped into his arms, wrapping her own around his waist. "Yet again. I guess I ought to get used to that. I may not be ready to break yet, but in the meantime do I need to let out some of my emotions. If I don't, they'll tear me apart from the inside."

He hummed thoughtfully, his hand unconsciously raising to stroke her hair. He liked the feeling much more than he should, and he couldn't help wondering if he was crossing some sort of imaginary line. But she made no move to stop him. In fact, it almost felt like... Was she stroking his back?

She pulled away slightly to look up into his eyes, but her hands remained around his waist, as his remained on hers. "You and I are... intense people. I know, without question, that I can trust you with my life. But, as previously stated, my emotions are my problem. I've trusted people too blindly in the past and, as a result, I got burned. I'll be damned if I make that mistake again. Can you forgive me if all I can manage are baby steps?"

"Only if you promise that you _will_ take baby steps, even when you don't want to."

She nodded. "That's a fair request. But you've been warned; If I turn out to be more than you can handle, you'll have no one to blame but yourself."

"Your scars don't scare me," he reminded her.

"You haven't seen them yet, but it's clear that my warnings certainly don't scare you, so I'll let it drop for now."

They fell into a comfortable silence, each content in the other's embrace. Then Ororo did the very last thing Logan would've expected; she leaned closer to him, pressing her cold nose against his neck and inhaling deeply. Every muscle in his body coiled, and his heart began beating double time. Just what in the hell was she doing? Truly, her touch shouldn't've inspired such an intense reaction. Her skin was like ice, as was the air that she exhaled. Yet he eyed the door frame, wondering if it would offer him support in the event that his knees buckled out from under him.

She finally stepped away from him, and he saw that her mask had slipped away again. She didn't exactly look happy or even remotely cheerful, but she looked calm. She looked like she was at peace. But in her eyes...

Logan nearly scowled at her. She knew damn well what reaction he'd had to her gesture! She tapped her nose and slowly backed into her room, her eyes glittering with mild amusement. "I think you and I have the same problem," she said as she closed the door in his face.

He stared at her door for a few minutes, thinking about what that meant. Did his scent - whatever it was to her - have the same effect on her that her rainforest scent had on him?


	49. Tension

Okay, Part Three of The Trouble with Weather is VERY loosely based on the X-Men video game. I used it as more of an outline, since I don't own the game and had to look everything up on Wikipedia. Funnily enough, the game isn't too far off from what I was going to do in the first place, but there were some good ideas that I borrowed. I'm allowed to do that, right?

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**Part Three: The Calm Before the Storm**

One month.

It had been an entire month since they'd been to Alkali Lake, and Logan knew that he wasn't the only one that was haunted by dreams every now and then of Jean being swept away. On more than one occasion, Scott's screams of terror had roused the entire house in the middle of the night, and Ororo had even caused a few nasty thunderstorms in her sleep.

As for Logan, on the one occasion that he'd managed to actually fall asleep, he'd awoke a few short hours later to find that his bed had been torn to shreds. Xavier had purchased him another bed, not blaming him in the least for the accident. Logan, nonetheless, tried to avoid long periods of sleep. It wasn't hard, considering that his mind was so busy that he'd have to force sleep on himself.

None of the X-Men were resting well, and Xavier certainly knew it. He often threw Scott sympathetic looks when he'd had a particularly vivid nightmare or when Logan's fatigue nearly overwhelmed him. Neither Logan nor Scott were fond of that look, but Logan didn't go out of his way to scorn the professor for it.

Like Scott was now.

Snapping at Ororo had only been the beginning. Scott had snapped at Logan, Ororo and even Xavier for any and every reason under the sun on a daily basis. He had even gone as far as to get into a fist fight with Logan. Realizing that the younger man needed to let out some steam, Logan had let himself take a bit of a beating by Scott, but it hadn't improved his mood in the least.

Though he hadn't gone as far as to lash out at any of the children, they seemed to know that they should keep their distance from him. Logan's sympathy for the man had begun to slowly ebb away into a vibrant dislike, especially every time he snapped at Ororo. But one night had changed his opinion about Scott.

Taking a stroll around the grounds to get away from the constant noise, Logan had caught Scott in a very private moment by the large water fountain. Logan would've simply passed by without a second glance, but he'd heard muttering and he'd thought that Scott was talking to him. Before he got the chance to ask Scott to repeat himself, his words rang out loud and clear.

"How am I supposed to do this, Jean?" he'd groaned. "I know that they'd help me if I asked, but how could I live with myself if I dragged them down with me?"

After hearing that statement, Logan had quietly stepped away to allow Scott his moment alone. And, though Logan wasn't sure why he'd want to go through such depression alone, he had a better understanding of why Scott was pushing everyone away from him.

Still, he didn't have to be such a dick about it.

"What makes you think I want to go anywhere _near_ that place _ever_ again," Scott asked Xavier in an impatient tone.

Logan and Ororo kept a sharp eye on Scott as Xavier looked up at the man calmly. He'd clearly been expecting this reaction from Scott. "I know that it's hard for you, Scott," he said softly. "But we really will need all the help we can get. I'm not sure how Stryker was able to move the plates so easily, but I can guarantee that Peter and Logan's strength alone won't cut it."

Logan found himself doubting that as he glanced sideways at the eager Russian. Xavier had invited him to come along because they were in dire need of brute strength. He'd gone a month without using Cerebro because Stryker had stolen plates and other valuable equipment for Dark Cerebro. While Scott had managed to piece most of the system back together, there were quite a few parts that were irreplaceable, and those irreplaceable parts were underwater in Stryker's base.

Xavier's excuse for waiting so long to send them to Alkali Lake had been that they needed to wait for the water from the collapsed dam to settle, but Logan didn't buy it for a minute. Xavier had probably known Jean longer than any of them had, and the wounds of her sacrifice were still fresh, even for Logan. If he could have, Xavier probably would've waited longer to send them back to Alkali Lake to retrieve the parts. But time wasn't a luxury they could indulge in at the moment. The X-Men knew that Magneto was up to something, and though Magneto had a device to keep his thoughts private from Xavier, they could still find ways to watch over him and monitor the things that he did with the aid of Cerebro.

Among the irreplaceable parts were at least fifteen of the large plates that went on the walls, and each weighted a good five hundred pounds. Being the strongest of the X-Men, Peter and Logan were required to go by default. Ororo could use the wind to help balance the plates, Kurt could teleport a few of the smaller pieces, but Logan had to wonder why Scott needed to be there.

In his own opinion, Scott would simply get in the way of progress. He was slightly stronger than the average human, yes, but that didn't count for much when they were going to be doing such heavy lifting. If he could use the beams from his eyes to carry a plate, that would be helpful. But Logan doubted that Scott's eyes could do such a thing. He doubted that Scott's eyes could lift anything without punching a hole through it.

Logan suspected that Xavier just wanted Scott to get out of the house. His pain still seemed to be as fresh as the day Jean had died. After a week and a half of being locked in his room, Scott had thrown himself into repairing Cerebro as well as building a training program that he'd designed not long ago. He kept himself busy in that way, and Logan didn't see why Xavier thought it was unhealthy to bury his pain like that. It was certainly better than drinking himself to death or just taking up space.

True, it had been a while since Scott had been in actual daylight; the pallid color of his skin was proof that he didn't get out much lately. He looked a little skinnier than Logan had last seen, and he had bags under his eyes that reached below his glasses. Logan knew that losing someone you loved that much hurt like nothing else, but he also knew that Scott would heal eventually, and he needed to do it on his own without anyone forcing help on him.

Xavier was the only person that seemed willing to help Scott, despite how he tried to push the older man away. Which brought him back to wondering why Xavier wanted Scott to go with them to Alkali Lake so badly.

"Excuse me, Professor," Peter said, Russian accent painfully thick. "These panels that we have to carry are quite heavy, yes? Cyclops won't be able to help very well. He isn't nearly as strong as Wolverine and I, and he's lost a lot of muscle mass recently." Peter threw Scott a cautious glance. The older man was staring right at him, his brows drawn together. "I'm only stating a fact," Peter told him.

Logan could tell that Xavier wasn't terribly fond of Peter's blatant disinterest in being overly sympathetic to Scott, but Logan found it refreshing. Everyone in the mansion had been tiptoeing around the subject of Jean's death and how hard Scott was taking it, but anyone with eyes could see that it had devastated him. Why beat around the bush?

"Peter's right," Ororo said flatly. _She_ certainly wasn't beating around the bush, nor had she attempted to in the past month. "We don't need _everyone_ there. The four of us should do fine without Scott."

"You think I'll slow you down?" Scott challenged.

"You think you won't?" she snapped back.

Logan tensed, ready for anything. Scott and Ororo's first small fight had only been the beginning. While Scott had never raised a hand to Ororo, she'd struck him more than once when they had their arguments. The idea of physically restraining her didn't appeal to Logan. The last time he had, she'd redirected her anger at Logan, and the result had been his bones being hotter than usual for three days after she'd zapped him.

The best remedy had been to keep Scott and Ororo apart as much as possible, and Logan agreed that this small mission was no exception.

"You don't want to go," Logan said calmly, addressing Scott. "We don't need you to go. It's a win/win situation."

"Logan…" Xavier began testily.

"Good enough for me," Ororo stated, leaving the room. Kurt shrugged apologetically at Scott and vanished from his spot on the couch, undoubtedly to talk to Ororo. Logan's gaze lingered on the blue mutant's now vacant spot a moment longer than necessary. Much to his dismay, though Ororo had promised to open up to him, she seemed to be growing much closer to Kurt. He kept telling himself that Kurt was something of her personal religious consult, but each time it sounded more and more ridiculous.

"Well, since you don't need me I'll get back to work," Scott said in a dull tone, leaving the room as well. Though they were going to the same place, it didn't escape Logan's notice that Scott purposefully went in the opposite direction of Ororo. _Well, at least he doesn't _always_ go out of his way to provoke her..._

"I guess I'll go get ready to go then," Peter said, slipping out as well.

It was just Logan and Xavier, and Logan turned to leave as well. Though they didn't go out of their way to avoid each other, there was still a lot that was unresolved between Logan and Xavier. Logan didn't like being lied to, and liked not being trusted by someone he placed his faith in even less. As everyone had been under a lot of stress, neither of them had made a big deal out of it, but that didn't mean that it didn't hang in the air on the rare occasion that they were in the same room together.

He shrugged off the odd silence as he walked down the hall, only to be met with the sight of Kurt embracing Ororo. Swallowing his jealousy, he marched right past them without a sideways glance or a moment's hesitation. As of that moment, they had a mission to complete, and Logan couldn't be weighted down by something as trivial as mild jealousy. _Perhaps not mild..._

If he wanted to be honest with himself, it burned him to the core that she trusted Kurt more than she trusted him. She'd known Logan longer. He was almost positive that he knew her better, but still she ran to Kurt when she needed a serious talk. Why?!

He blinked hard as he arrived at the changing area, trying to rid himself of his thoughts. If it was still bothering him later…

He didn't really know what his options were if it turned out that he was still bothered by it later.

_Who the hell am I trying to kid,_ he thought. He _knew _that he'd still be bothered by it.


	50. Surprise

I'm so excited! I was typing this chapter so fast that - more than once - I forgot words that can be pretty important. Like 'the' and 'and' and 'is'. So if that's happened anywhere, I edited my best, but this chapter kept poking me, asking, "Can you post me yet? Can you post me yet?!"

I regret that I don't remember who's review gave me the idea for this, but I'm gonna comb through those reviews like a starving man looking for a crumb to find out who it was! If you know who you are, feel free to raise your hand!

* * *

Logan sat in his usual seat behind Ororo, silently brooding. Scott had decided to come along after all, and he was currently sitting in the co-pilot's seat, moving mechanically, as though out of habit. Because of how tense he was, no one dared to speak. Logan normally would've relished the silence, but silence meant time for thinking, and he already did way too much thinking since sleep wasn't an option for him.

He wanted to hear something other than steady breathing and pulses and the jet engines. He was desperate enough for noise that he was willing to endure one of Kurt's ridiculous stories about his time in the Munich circus! _I guess John rubbed off on me a little…_

Though he didn't want to think, he didn't want to be the one to break the silence either. So for the entire trip he didn't speak a word, thankful that, at least on the way back, it wouldn't be so tense in the jet. Xavier had arranged for an eighteen-wheeler to be waiting for them at the base when they got there. They'd put the heavy plates in the semi, and someone would drive the truck back to Westchester. Logan was willing to bet any amount of money that Scott would jump at the chance to do something helpful that didn't require being in close proximity with the others.

They landed after a two and a half hour flight, and Ororo set the jet down with more grace than Scott ever had. They were about a quarter of a mile from the beach, just in case something went wrong during Ororo's solo portion of the mission. In the briefing room, Ororo had stated that she had the ability to separate water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis. The whole explanation had been a bit too complicated for Logan to follow word for word, but the gist of what he understood was that she could breathe underwater. As most of the base was underwater, as far as they knew, she would go down and find a way inside the base, seal the hall that had Cerebro with a thick wall of ice by chilling the oxygen in the water, and heat the remaining water until it evaporated and left them a clear passage in and out with the supplies they were taking.

Logan had felt mildly concerned for her when he'd heard all of that, but as he watched her wade into the water and disappear without so much as a shiver, he decided that she would be perfectly fine with her task. But she reappeared, sopping wet, not five minutes later with a scowl.

"I couldn't find an entrance," she reported. "I felt along every single wall and felt for water pressure on the other side. A good portion of the base has already been drained."

Logan frowned, not liking the feeling that settled in the pit of his stomach upon hearing that. "Maybe Xavier forgot to mention that he'd had the base drained?" he tried

"Xavier isn't forgetful," Scott said dismissively. "He didn't tell us because he didn't do it."

"How large is a 'good portion'?" Logan asked. "It is a military base, after all…"

"Enough to suggest that the path to the Cerebro chamber is already free and clear."

"The spillway?"

"Don't know."

Logan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I have an idea," he began hesitantly, wondering how far he would get with his explanation before he was shot down. "The spillway doors are big enough to easily move the Cerebro plates through, and if I remember correctly, it's also the shortest route to the chamber. If the doors are sealed, Cyclops, you can use your laser eyes cut a small hole through the door. No water pushing the piece out means that the other side has been drained, and we won't drown if you cut a bigger hole for us to crawl through. Then we can try to find out what the hell is going on."

He glanced at Ororo and Scott, who were simply staring at him. "You thought through all of that in a few seconds?" she asked.

"My mind is always moving," he answered.

"Not a bad idea," Scott said. "We might need to move the jet if the spillway is pretty far from here."

"Let's find out if the spillway is clear first," Ororo suggested, rising into the air. She stopped at what Logan estimated to be twenty feet in the air (he shivered involuntarily) and looked around. She shot off in the direction of something that had caught her eye and was back in less than a minute.

"It's clear," she reported, hovering a foot above the ground as she floated in the direction of the jet. "I felt the pressure on the other side of the doors, too. No water. Someone drained it."

Everyone followed her back to the jet, and while they all looked at ease and really weren't paying much attention to Ororo's method of transportation, Logan couldn't help watching her like a hawk. He knew that she wasn't defenseless. He knew that a drop from only a foot in the air wouldn't damage her in the slightest.

Yet he still had to swallow the urge to snap at her to be careful when she ducked and dodged branches without looking. He knew he'd only sound like an irate mother, and he knew that she wouldn't appreciate her flying skills being questioned. Twice he opened his mouth, and twice he shut it before they finally reached the jet and she put both feet on solid ground, allowing Logan a private sigh of relief.

Flying the jet near the spillway entrance took five short minutes, and soon Cyclops was drilling a perfect circle into the metal doors. Logan was mildly impressed, but said nothing.

True to her word, built up water on the other side didn't move the metal cut out. Logan turned to the chrome scented Russian (how he was able to differentiate between the scents of different metals was beyond him) just as a smile broke out on the younger man's face. Before their eyes, his skin became coated with the organic steel that Logan had heard quite a lot about, but had never seen. The arms on his uniform had been taken off, and Logan could see that, for a boy of maybe twenty-one, he was a one man wrecking crew even when he wasn't coated in metal. After one rough shove the metal began to give way and fell on the other side of the opening with a loud thud. They had their doorway.

The loading bay was perfectly lit, prompting Logan to frown as he stepped inside. But all thoughts as to why it was lit died as his eyes rested on a robot that was easily ten feet tall. It stood perfectly still, as though on watch. Logan would've been inclined to think that it was a statue, but the quiet hum of machinery from within was unmistakable.

"I don't think it heard us," Kurt said after a long moment. "It hasn't moved an inch."

"It might programmed to detect movement within a certain perimeter," Scott suggested.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Peter asked, his steel muscles coiled and ready for anything.

"It means," Ororo said in a patient tone, "that if we step, say, within ten feet of it, it'll register that something is approaching it and act accordingly."

"And I'm willing to bet it won't just point to the door," Logan said, the gut feeling intensifying.

"_One day, someone will finish what I've started, Wolverine! One day sooner than you think!_"

It seemed that Stryker had backup plans in the event of his death. Either that or there were more people that had mutant genocide in mind than he'd thought. As Stryker had been one to avoid death at all costs, Logan was inclined to think that it was a bit of both.

"Let's see how close we can get," Kurt suggested. "Maybe we can go around it."

Logan eyed the robot or whatever the hell it was distastefully. Logan could take a few bullets, sure, but this thing looked like it was more likely to be armed with bazookas than bullets. Logan snorted. "After you."

Kurt grabbed Logan's wrist and, before he could snarl in protest, the strong scent of sulfur filled his nose and he was in the hall on the other side of the robot. It remained stationary and Kurt flashed Logan a grin before disappearing and repeating the process with the rest of the X-Men.

He was certainly relieved that they wouldn't have to face the thing, but it felt a little anti-climactic. He shook his head. Every mission didn't have to be a fight for survival. Perhaps he was just getting used to it, as almost every time he went on a mission they had to save the world. _I should be glad that we avoided a fight,_ he told himself firmly. For all he knew, the robot was just a giant explosive.

Ororo lead the way down the halls, her hand gliding across the wall. Logan guessed that she was checking air pressure as best she could to make sure that nothing was going to take them by surprise. Logan sighed deeply, and a familiar scent hit his nose. He paused mid-step, trying his best to identify the smell and why it was familiar.

It didn't take long for an image to come to mind that made his adrenaline surge. Ororo was just about to turn the corner to the Cerebro entrance and Logan was at her back in half a second. He snaked his arm around her waist and crushed her against his chest, flattening his back against the wall. He had done it perhaps too roughly, because after a gasp of surprise, Ororo cried out indignantly. "Logan, what the fu – "

He covered her mouth just as the doors hissed loudly and opened. Chaos and mechanical movement reached their ears first, and there was no doubt in Logan's mind that he was here for the parts that they needed. Though _why_ he would want them was a mystery.

Lazy footsteps coming in their direction could be heard next, followed by a grainy voice that was clearly on the other end of a walkie talkie. "They weren't designed to be workers. They were designed for combat."

"Yeah well, let's hope you're a better programmer than you are a scientist," another irate voice said, the source of the footsteps and the reason why Logan was clinging so tightly to Ororo. "How the hell did you get to be a scientist?! You can't mix chemicals for shit! You told me that disgusting concoction would boost my strength and speed. You forgot mention that I'd have the brain of a wet dog!"

He'd know that voice anywhere. It wasn't the voice of the man-beast that he'd fought on top of the Statue of Liberty. This was the voice that had been with him through the Civil War, through both World Wars, through Vietnam and Korea.

The name was seconds from escaping Logan's lips, but _he_ had stopped talking and inhaled deeply. The hairs on the back of Logan's neck raised.

"Hiya, Jimmy," he said, a smile in his voice.

"Long time, no see," Logan responded coldly. "Victor."


	51. Monsters

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I couldn't post this fast enough. The gears in my head are turning so fast, it's like watching a movie behind my eyes!

Anyway… Victor… I'm not an expert on Victor or anything, but I am a fan. I'm assuming that, under his rough and tough exterior, he's every bit as intelligent as Logan, if not a little more. After all, Logan only recalls the past fifteen years of his life, while Victor remembers 150+ years. I know he has a healing factor and all that, but honestly, you don't survive that long if you're an absolute dumbass.

That's not to say that he's an expert on quantum physics, but I'm pretty sure that he could put together an AK-47 while in the dark and hanging upside down. Or, at the very least, is capable of correct sentence structure and intellectual thought. The fact that he's intelligent and sinister, but likes to use brute strength is what makes him such a cool villain, in my opinion.

Oh, and the idea to bring Victor back came to me while reading a comment from Demondog666. Took me FOREVER to find that comment, but thank you for the idea!

Enough talking! Enjoy!

* * *

Logan held perfectly still, his thoughts flying at the speed of light. He'd thought about meeting Sabretooth again so many times, dreamed of how he'd make him suffer for thinking to hurt Ororo in any way. And a little payback after their scuffle on the top of the statue wouldn't hurt either.

But this wasn't Sabretooth. This was Victor, perhaps the biggest key to his past yet. And besides that, he'd just mentioned that whatever chemical had turned him into that beast, it had made him different. Could he be held responsible for everything that he'd done while he'd been Magneto's accomplice? _To a certain extent…_ While the idea of roughing him up wasn't at all out of the question, Logan didn't exactly know if he wanted to kill Victor.

_But avoiding him would sure as hell be nice._

Victor rounded the corner and smirked at Logan. He looked much the same as he had in Logan's dreams/memories; confident to the point of arrogance, as though the world was his for the taking. His hair was cut close as though it'd been shaved recently and he had lost the wicked eyebrows. He was every bit as muscular as Logan, and they were very nearly the same height. It was odd to see him looking as he had so many years ago when, in their last face to face encounter, he had looked more like a werewolf than a man.

"So you remember me?" Victor asked, sounding impressed. "I'd heard that you couldn't remember anything. You probably have Stryker to thank for that."

Logan growled. _Should I just go ahead and blame Stryker for _all_ of my life's problems?_

"Not that I'm disappointed that you _do _remember me," he continued. "I was actually pissed when I found out that you didn't. The very reason that I took that crap that Trask created was so that I'd be able to find you. It's not called Jekyll and Hyde Serum for nothing, eh little brother? You saw me; I looked like a caveman."

Brother.

Logan recalled dreams in which he and Victor had frequently addressed each other as 'brother.' Though people could stick together for decades and come to see each other as family, the love-hate relationship that Logan recalled from his dreams suggested that they weren't just deeply bonded friends. And the obvious similarities between them couldn't be ignored. They were related by blood.

He also recalled Victor's insatiable blood-lust, and watching the horrifying decay of Victor's humanity right before his eyes. If Victor had been looking for him for so many years, it certainly wasn't for a friendly chat. But Logan was willing to play along. "You still look like a caveman."

Victor grinned, his gaze sliding down from Logan's face. "You know, I don't think that lovely lady in your arms is having as much fun as you are."

Logan lessened his grip on Ororo and uncovered her mouth. The arm around her waist, however, remained exactly where it was. If he needed to toss her out of the way at the drop of a hat, he was in the perfect position to push her as far from the danger as possible.

"Still overly protective of your women, I see."

"Still want what you can't have, I see," Logan spat back. The way he was eying Ororo and completely ignoring him was disconcerting. Logan hadn't forgotten the way Victor had growled that Ororo owed him a scream, but the way he was eying her now suggested that he wanted to make her scream in an entirely different day.

"What I _don't_ have and what I _can't _have are two different things," Victor clarified, never taking his eyes off of Ororo. "What I don't have can very easily become mine."

Logan felt a possessive snarl itching at the back of his throat. If their conversation continued like this, Logan was sure he'd find it in him to want to kill Victor.

"The portion of that statement in which you use the term 'easily' is up for debate," Ororo said coolly. Logan gave her a scathing glare, but Victor's smile only got bigger, exposing the canines that were slightly sharper than the average man's. Ororo ignored both looks, as though she were either used to it or simply didn't care. Logan chose to believe in the latter, though he wasn't entirely sure if it was faith in him or faith in herself that fueled her bravery. In either case, she spoke to Victor without a trace of fear. "This Trask; he's a scientist? Like Stryker?"

"I'd have to say that Stryker is – was – the better scientist of the two," he replied easily. "But, as far as finding you" – his gaze traveled back up to Logan – "it seems that Trask has given me everything that I needed. Though I'm guessing that our meeting today was coincidental, otherwise you wouldn't have brought this little entourage with you."

"Stryker stole that equipment from us," Scott said, motioning to the Cerebro chamber. The change in his voice was unmistakable, as though a switch had been flipped. This was no longer the Scott that was severely depressed and refused social contact of any kind. This was the leader of the X-Men. "We're here to get it back."

Victor glanced in Scott's direction with obvious disinterest. "I let you steal these parts, I don't get paid."

"I don't see how that should be a problem," Logan said dryly.

Victor raised an eyebrow at him. "You calling me a thief?"

"If memory serves."

"Which it doesn't."

Completely without his permission, a smirk tugged at the corner of Logan's lips. As loathe as he was to admit it, this kind of banter with Victor felt… natural. And, in all honesty, Logan didn't hate the idea of getting out of this situation without a fight. _However unlikely that might be…_

"So that's your robot out in the loading bay," Scott accused.

"They're called Sentinels, and they belong to Trask. I'm only mildly surprised that it didn't attack you. Trask must be a terrible programmer _and_ scientist."

"We teleported," Kurt told him.

"Sure, whatever. Like I said, the parts aren't up for grabs."

Just as he'd suspected. Logan had never expected to get out of this without fighting Victor, but he'd hoped that the X-Men would at least have the chance to get away from them before he did. He didn't remember the exact reasons for their fights in the past, but he remembered that they had gotten quite violent on more than one occasion. If any of them tried to get between the two of them...

Logan mentally shook his head. All of them were brave, but none of them were stupid. The only one that was in immediate danger was Ororo. "That's too bad," Logan said, the arm around Ororo tensing like corded steel. "Because we're not leaving without those parts."

As he'd expected, Victor grinned. "You want to fight me for that scrap metal, Jimmy?"

He gave Victor a similar grin. "Love to."

Logan threw Ororo aside – right into Peter or Scott, he hoped, as it had been a literal throw – just as Victor lunged forward with a rabid snarl. Logan responded in kind, his claws jumping out of his fists as he swung wildly at Victor.

Kicks and punches were just blurs of movement to Logan as he and Victor maneuvered around each other - forward, back, left, right, up, down - testing the other's agility and trying to remember the other's particular fighting style.

For every hit that Logan landed, he got one in return. Victor was able to expertly avoid being seriously damaged by Logan's claws, to the point that he was able to catch his fist without so much as touching them. Victor kicked his feet out from under him and Logan went down with a heavy thud. He nearly cried out in surprise when only his lower half made contact with the ground, and his upper half kept falling.

He dug his claws into the ground before he slipped over the edge and spun his body until he was lying on his stomach, staring at Victor's boots. They'd fought their way into the Dark Cerebro chamber, and they were already halfway to the main control station. Two more of the robots were fighting the other X-Men, and it unfortunately looked like the machines had the upper hand. They even appeared to be learning as they fought.

Victor chuckled and Logan jerked his attention back to his own adversary. "And we're still afraid of heights. It was cute when you were eleven, but now it's kind of annoying. Embarrassing even."

Just as Victor moved to kick him, Logan rolled out of the way and spun his body again, using his legs to kick Victor's feet out from under him. "So is your predictability," Logan mocked.

Victor landed in the same inelegant fashion, but was on his feet just as quickly as Logan was. He wore a large grin as a few shallow slashes across his face healed themselves. "Just like old times."

"So it would seem," Logan returned, lunging at him. He was mildly aware of the rapid movement and chaos around him, but paid it little attention. Nothing in the room mattered except for this fight.

Until Ororo collided with Victor.

They were both knocked to the ground in a tangle of limbs and shouts of surprise. Victor placed a hand on her back to shove her off, and she grabbed his wrist, electrocuting him. Before Logan could take a step in their direction, Victor snarled at her as he locked an arm around her waist and hurtled her behind him as though tossing a rag doll. It was then that Logan noticed that there was a large luggage chest sitting where the Cerebro control station was supposed to be.

An _open _luggage chest.

_You've got to be** fucking **kidding me!_

He watched in horror as Ororo flew right in, as though Victor had been aiming to throw her there. The lid slammed shut and the unmistakable _click_ of a lock made Logan's heart crumble to ash. The cage he'd pulled her out of in his dream had reduced her to shivering in a corner in sub zero temperatures. While she could blast her way out of the chest with relative ease, if she was truly claustrophobic…

As if on cue, a blood curdling scream erupted from inside the chest, drowned out only by rapid thrashing and howling wind. Snow and rain began swirling around them, and at least four tornadoes materialized out of thin air.

Logan lunged for the chest, but his way was blocked by muscle every bit as solid and strong as his own. "Oh no you don't," Victor growled, grabbing him by the throat. "I'm not finished with you yet."

Logan's vision turned blood red as he viciously snarled at Victor and ripped himself out of his grasp. Wolverine bared his teeth at Sabretooth and they charged each other at the same time, colliding and going right to the ground, scrapping like rabid wolves.

While Sabretooth was able to avoid most of his slashes, it seemed that he was just barely able to do so. Sabretooth got in the first damaging hit, stabbing Wolverine right in the abdomen. He roared in pain, but seized the opportunity when Sabretooth had paused long enough for Wolverine to stab him in the chest.

Sabretooth let out a similar roar and lifted Wolverine in the air, as though to throw him over the edge. Wolverine lifted his legs and kicked Sabretooth in the chest just as he removed his claws. He twisted his body in midair, every bit as gracefully as a seasoned acrobat, and managed to land on his feet. He kicked off the ground the second be felt it beneath him and headed straight for Sabretooth, who was also on his feet with the same wild blood lust in his eyes.

He heard only his own blood rushing in his veins as he knocked Sabretooth back to the ground and stabbed his torso repeatedly. Sabretooth cried out in pain until all he could manage was gasping. And after that… laughing?

It took a minute for that to process in his mind, but when it did, Logan blinked the water out of his eyes, only then realizing that it was still raining. He looked around and realized that it wasn't simply raining, but that there was small hurricane circling around them and the entire chamber. Scott, Peter and Kurt were nowhere to be seen, and Logan wondered if they'd had the sense to get out while they could, or if they were lying dead at the bottom of the chamber.

No, Scott had enough common sense to get them out of there before something bad happened to them. And thankfully, he had the sense to stay out of the way of both Logan's and Victor's claws. But that had it's drawbacks, because Logan and Victor's claws happened to be blocking their way to the chest.

Logan scowled down at Victor as he continued laughing. Cutting his head off would probably kill him, but Logan couldn't make his arm move to do it. For better or worse – and it seemed like worse was much more likely – Victor was his brother, and his only living relative. He knew about his past, probably more intimately than Stryker had. He knew things as insignificant as his fear of heights, and as pertinent as how he'd lost his memory.

Victor had a thirst for blood, yes, but it was a thirst for Logan's blood. And did he really want to kill Logan? He honestly wasn't sure. He knew that Victor wanted to surpass him in strength, if he'd interpreted his dreams correctly, but did he want to kill Logan any more than Logan wanted to kill him? The world wouldn't be so badly off if he allowed Victor to live, would it? The X-Men surely wouldn't blame him for not ending a life. They'd probably consider it progress.

"You still don't have it in you, Jimmy," Victor rasped, a weak smile on his features. "You never will."

Logan didn't entirely believe that. Taking in Victor's bloodied and broken appearance, it seemed that he _did _have it in him to kill Victor. He knew how to do it, he knew it would work…

But he was choosing not to.

"I don't have to," Logan told him, narrowing his eyes. "I'm not you." He drew back his fist and – after he retracted his claws – punched Victor repeatedly across the face until he was certain that he'd be knocked out for a while. He got to his feet, giving Victor a rough kick in the ribs for good measure before taking in his appearance. His uniform was ripped in various places and would need to be repaired – _Goddamn this flimsy leather! Can't they just give me Kevlar?_ – but it seemed that the rain had washed away most of the blood…

Rain!

Ororo was still locked inside the chest! He didn't hear screaming, but the steadily rotating hurricane suggested that she was far from calm. Cursing both Scott and Kurt under his breath - _that bastard could've teleported the case out of here and Scott could've let her out_ - Logan leapt over Victor's still form and knelt down in front of the luggage chest, which was coated with a thick layer of ice. With a quick slash of his claw, he broke the lock and was able to open the chest.

Inside, Ororo lay in a fetal position, her eyes wide and glowing white. Her hair was standing on end, and he saw that thin blue streaks of static crackled and snapped all across her body. She didn't even seem to be aware that the chest was open or that Logan was calling her name.


	52. Shatter

Short chapter alert! But its so action packed that I think that makes up for the length. Or lack thereof… And what's with all these cliffhangers?! Well, up until now, you've all had a vague idea of what was going to happen next, but _no longer!_ *insert evil laugh*

* * *

"Storm?"

Nothing. She didn't move. She didn't blink. The hurricane didn't stop… nothing.

Logan felt his pulse pick up. "Ororo."

Still nothing.

He reached out to touch her, expecting a mild shock, if anything. Instead, it felt like a live wire had been touched to him after he'd been drenched in water. He jumped back in alarm, falling flat on his back. With the speed of an animal desperate for escape, Ororo crawled out of the chest right behind him and was on top of him on the ground.

He heard her raggedly whisper, "It was only a dream," before her mouth covered his. Her lips were hard and demanding, and Logan was sure that a man without the ability to heal might've been bruised by her kiss. Every inch of his skin suddenly felt like it was crawling, but instead of being repellent, it was the most pleasurable sensation he'd ever experienced. He felt like electricity and fire were coursing through his veins, and the sounds she was making only made his heart beat faster.

His thoughts became muddled and everything within him boiled down to one word and desperate need: _more_.

He rolled them over until he was on top, and she arched her back, wrapping her legs around his waist without shame or hesitation. She gasped and growled, biting and kissing every inch of his skin that was available to her delicious torture. Whether it was minutes or hours or seconds, she was able to reduce Logan to uncontrollable gasps and shivers against her.

He tasted salt on her lips, and realized that she was crying as heavily as she was breathing, and that her lips weren't just kissing him, but also whispering that it had only been a dream. It was then that the enormity of what was happening hit him: this wasn't affection. It was shock. She wanted him. Right now, on the floor, but for all the wrong reasons.

But what mattered was that she wanted him, if only for the moment. Right?

The feeling that he was taking advantage of her magnified until it physically pained him and he had to pull away from her. She tried to follow after him, but he placed both of his hands on her shoulders and held her at arms length. Her blue eyes, wide and innocent as a child's and more vulnerable than Ororo normally would've allowed, were clouded with confusion as she looked up at him, obviously waiting for an explanation.

He knew why he'd pulled away, but he couldn't put it into words that she might understand in such a condition. He knew that this wasn't at all like him. His solution to every problem had always been direct. No hesitation, less regrets. Until now.

Until _her_.

Somehow she brought out the best in him. She made him want to be better. She made him want to let go of the person be had been and the life he was accustomed to. If not for her influence, he might've killed Victor first and thought about the ramifications later.

It would be so easy for him to give up everything that he was used to and comfortable with if he knew that in the end he'd have a chance to be with her. But the wicked joke was the realization that winning her wasn't guaranteed. It might not even be possible, no matter how he proved himself to her.

But what would he have to lose if he tried to become a better person, if only for his own benefit? Not a damn thing. He had almost everything to gain, but there was always the possibility that Ororo might want to keep him at arms length. Knowing that, why make the effort?

He shook that thought away, knowing in his heart that he wanted to try anyway. Because, even though it made him feel crazy, even though she was damn near impossible to get through to, and even though he'd never undergone anything more impossible than trying to win her, he liked the way it made him feel. The way _she_ made him feel.

But seeing the shell shocked look in her eyes, he wondered if maybe he should've asked her what she wanted instead of assuming that he knew what she needed. He'd paused longer than he'd thought, and the hurricane around them slowed until the water slid down the walls and pooled at the bottom of the chamber. Before his eyes, her confused expression morphed into one of hurt and betrayal.

Her tears began in earnest again, and when he leaned forward she jerked her entire body out of his reach as though he'd burned her. "_NO_," she screeched, scrambling to her feet and looking around her wildly.

Five tornadoes materialized out of thin air again, but they formed a circle around her, as though offering protection. She began panting, which quickly became hyperventilating. She continued shaking her head and muttering to herself, though Logan wasn't sure of what she was saying. After a few minutes, he was almost positive that she'd forgotten he was even in the chamber with her, but he didn't dare move closer to her. She might back away from him and not realize where the edge of the bridge was until she'd stepped too far. She could certainly fly, but Logan couldn't be sure that such a thing would occur to her in her panicked state.

He took a step back for good measure and shouted her name over the howling wind of the tornadoes she'd created. She clutched her head, dropping to her knees and shaking violently. Snow and rain began flying around the chamber, and the wind propelling it was close to seventy miles an hour, if Logan had to guess.

"What's happening?" Kurt shouted.

Logan turned around and saw the blue mutant, standing only a five feet away, yet needing to yell at the top of his lungs to be heard. He was fearfully staring at Ororo and moving closer. Logan held up a hand to still him. "No! Where are Cyclops and Colossus?"

"The hurricane forced us out!"

"Good! All of you stay out until I can calm her down!"

Kurt threw Ororo a worried look but did as he was told without question, disappearing into thin air. Logan turned back to her, and saw that she was still on her knees, hunched over and crying and ignoring him completely. Hoping that the weight of his bones would be enough to keep him from flying off the bridge, he ran to her and grabbed her arms before she could pull away from him. One arm was colder than ice and gave him mild frost bite, while the other gave him what was certainly a second degree burn.

She was muttering in a language that he didn't understand, shaking her head. The second he uttered her name, she glared up at him, her eyes glowing white. "Don't _touch_ me," she shouted, though she made no move to pull away from him. Sobbing to herself, she began whispering in English. "It's not enough. It's _never_ enough! _I'm_ never enough! T'Challa left me because I couldn't love him enough! John left me because I didn't raise him well enough! Jean left me because I couldn't fix the jet fast enough! You left me…" She looked up at Logan, as though suddenly realizing that he was still there. "You didn't…"

"And I'm not going to," he told her, squeezing her arms for emphasis.

She shook her head, pulling away from him. "You already did," she choked. He heard the groaning of metal and realized that the chamber was starting to shake. On top of all of the chaos she was causing in the chamber alone, was she creating an earthquake too? "You left me," she repeated. "You left me because I'm not strong enough. You'll leave again."

"Ororo, you have to listen to me!" Logan insisted. "You're the strongest person that I know! And I'm not going anywhere! I lo - "

She was on her feet with lightning speed, and Logan's grip on her arms was so tight that he was pulled to his feet as well. Electric static crackled around her white eyes, which only seemed to glow brighter. "I said _don't TOUCH me_," she roared.

She grabbed his wrists and pain so intense it that it blinded him tore through his entire body. He blinked and he was lying on the ground on top of an unconscious Victor, a good ten feet away. Logan groaned and pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the liquid fire that raced up and down his spine.

He glanced at Ororo, bracing himself for another attack. But instead, he saw that she was staring at him with a horrified expression, her eyes no longer glowing. He looked down to see what it was that had her looking so frightened, and grimaced at what he found. The skin and muscle on both of his forearms was split wide - from his wrists to the insides of his elbows - right down to the bone. The wounds weren't bleeding, as the extreme heat from being electrocuted had cauterized any free flowing blood. He could even see the mechanics of his claws, though it hardly interested him. What _did_ interest him was that the wounds showed no signs of healing.

In his peripheral vision, Logan saw that she'd taken a few steps forward, and was even reaching out to him. Still in defense mode, he jerked back in alarm before he could stop himself. She froze, her eyes wide and no longer white. He realized that she'd mistaken a gut reaction for blatant distrust. He shook his head, taking a step forward and even reaching out to her. But she'd closed her eyes, looking entirely defeated. The rain, tornadoes and earthquake all stopped long enough for him to hear her whisper, "I didn't mean to."

She opened her eyes to look at him again, but they immediately rolled into the back of their sockets and she crumbled to the ground, passed out from pure exhaustion. But instead of hitting the ground, she slipped over the edge and kept falling.

Fear unlike any he'd ever known seized his heart and he ran to the spot she'd been standing, diving after her without a moment's hesitation while screaming her name. He didn't care that he was falling; he didn't care about the height from which he was falling, and what he was going to collide with upon impact. All that mattered was cushioning her fall, because hitting the ground unprotected would damage her more than it would damage him.

He caught her arm and yanked her against his chest, twisting his body so that his back would hit the ground. He had only enough time for a quick sigh of relief before his world went black. He didn't even feel the impact.


	53. Awakening

Logan frowned as the sea of darkness slowly faded away. Though waking up after being knocked out was a sensation that he was more than used to by now, he certainly didn't enjoy it. He felt like his entire skeleton was vibrating and, though it was quite impossible, his head felt like it was slightly dented.

He opened his eyes and squinted against the harsh but familiar light of the medical wing and tried to lift his head. He hissed in pain and let it fall back, crying out colorful expletives when stars exploded behind his eyes.

He lay still for a moment, letting the stars recede until he opened his eyes again.

"Awake, I see," the professor's voice said softly.

"How long have I been out," Logan managed to rasp out.

"Three days," was the response. "Well, four days, really. Scott told me that you woke a little yesterday, but when you tried to lift your head you knocked yourself out again."

Logan frowned. That felt like it'd only happened a second ago. Then again, it also felt like it'd only been a few moments since he'd dived off of the safety of the platform to catch Ororo.

He suddenly found himself fully awake, but when he tried to move he couldn't. Thinking that the fall might've paralyzed him, he nearly began panicking. "Relax, Logan," Xavier said in that maddeningly calm voice. "I have you paralyzed. Moving too fast too soon could end the same way it did yesterday. Ororo is right here and her physical wounds are nothing she can't handle. Deep bruising seemed to be the worst of it."

Logan felt his body become his own again and he slowly and painfully turned his head in the direction of Xavier's voice. The old man was perched in his wheelchair above a table similar to his, but on the table laid Ororo. She wore only a white tank top and black shorts, but Logan couldn't be worried about someone like her getting cold. She almost looked peaceful, if not for the light frown on her perfect features.

"So mentally…?" Logan questioned, her meltdown still painfully clear in his memory.

Xavier sighed and looked up at Logan. "She's still having a bit of a fit, and though it's not quite as chaotic on the outside, inside she's still at war with her emotions. I've tried to reach her to calm her down a little, but she's got up a wall of static as good as any psychic barrier I could create. I've been monitoring her brain waves as best I can, and though she's had a few violent episodes, it seems that the worst is behind her."

Logan frowned. If he hadn't pushed her away…

"You can't blame yourself," Xavier said firmly. "Too many people are blaming themselves for things that aren't their fault or that they had no control over. Scott was proof enough of that, and now Ororo is too. Don't make the same mistake they did when it happened right before your eyes."

"But I – "

"No," he snapped. "Scott thinks that Jean's death is his fault. If he had paid better attention to where she was in the jet, he could've kept her from leaving. If he'd blasted through the door, he could've latched onto her and at least died with her and be spared his pain.

"And Ororo thinks that John left because she didn't do her job as a guardian. If she hadn't yelled at him and told him to stay put, he wouldn't have been compelled to leave. If she'd been more understanding, then he wouldn't hate her.

"You and I both know that Jean made the choice to get off the jet, and that Scott couldn't have stopped her if he'd tired. We also know that John doesn't hate Ororo. Why else would he leave his only reminder of his birth mother with her before departing? They both made choices, and the choices that they made are – for lack of a better term – their own faults.

"This situation with Ororo is much the same. She chose to bottle up her emotions instead of letting them out, and the result was that her emotions became too powerful for her mind to handle. The only way that her powers could protect her was to unleash her pent up emotions via a storm. Her body soon exhausted itself, and her mind was already exhausted, putting her in a coma. So, you see it wasn't your – "

"She's in a _coma_," Logan screeched.

"She was," he clarified with an apologetic glance. "She woke momentarily yesterday when you were cursing and she's been sleeping ever since. The best that we can do is wait for her to wake up, which might not be for several more hours. The point I'm trying to make is that her condition is her own doing. There's nothing you could've done, because you didn't know that the outcome would be so catastrophic and she refused to let anyone console her. I do, however, believe that your presence in the chamber may have kept her from creating a stronger storm."

Logan's eyes widened. "I… toned it _down_?"

"I felt it all the way from here. If you hadn't calmed her, her earthquake would've broken through the chamber. Your presence exhausted her, because in the very back of her mind, she feared for your life. Didn't you wonder why lightning wasn't racing up and down the walls of the chamber? She could've hurt you much worse that she did. If you hadn't been there to give her something to worry about, her power would've provided the energy that her body needed to prevent exhaustion. Her storm would've gotten bigger until it had consumed a good portion of North America. Perhaps the entire planet, if she wanted to."

"She's that powerful?" He didn't know if he ought to be impressed or terrified by such power.

"There are some mutants that are said to be so powerful that their talents are almost limitless. They're called omega-level mutants, and I've long believed that Ororo is one such mutant. Their power knows no bounds, and when a mutant lets that power control them, the result can be far worse than what you witnessed.

"I'd also believed Jean to be one, but omega-level mutants are – more or less – immortal, and whenever they're faced with the possibility of being killed, their power consumes them and is able to save their life even from the most drastic of conditions. But, if that were the case for Jean, she'd still be alive. When the tidal wave crushed her, her life force disappeared. There are only a few possible ways for her to have survived such a thing, if she were an omega-level mutant. But then, why hasn't she come back yet?"

Logan nearly nodded his understanding, but the smallest movement hurt, so he simply blinked. "I guess that makes sense." He turned his eyes back to Ororo. "You're sure she'll wake," he asked hesitantly.

Xavier glanced down at Ororo's sleeping form. "Positive," he said after a moment. "It's just a matter of time. She'll wake when she's ready."

Logan slowly turned his head back until he was facing the ceiling again and sighed. "What happened to Vic-Sabretooth?"

"He's alive, if he's anything like you," Xavier replied. "Scott felt that the decision was up to you as to what to do with him, but the situation with you and Ororo was more pressing, so he decided to just leave Victor where he lay."

"Probably what I would've done anyhow," Logan replied, closing his eyes. "I remember all of the things that he did – at least, I think I remember – but I still can't make myself believe that he's truly that evil, through and through. Some semblance of humanity has to be buried under all of that anger and hate _somewhere_. Unless there was never any to begin with. I can't remember that far back, but I refuse to believe that."

They shared a thoughtful silence before Xavier finally spoke up. "I know you wanted me to read your mind for more clues to your past and, as I said, I think that it'll just lead back to Alkali Lake. But, if you'd still like me to, I can look inside your mind again and see what there is."

Logan debated that for a second before frowning, remembering what Magneto had said. "You knew about Stryker," he accused. "You knew _everything_ and you left me in the dark."

"I did not know everything, Logan. I knew that Alkali Lake was a large key to your past. Stryker was a name that I knew long before I'd ever even heard of you. When I saw Alkali Lake in your mind, yes, I put the pieces together and figured that he was the one responsible for your adamantium skeleton. I didn't tell you because I was hoping that you'd find the base and the memories would start to come back to you as you looked around. I didn't anticipate that there would be nothing there, and when you told me as much, I truly believed the base to be abandoned until Stryker captured me."

"That doesn't explain why you didn't tell me any of that to begin with," Logan snapped, despite his fatigue. "These are my memories! Why didn't you trust me with them?"

"I'd hardly say I didn't trust you with them." Xavier sighed heavily. "The truth is, Logan, sometimes with amnesia, when you start to remember things on your own, your brain begins to understand how to recover memories and remembering becomes easier. If I tell you everything, your mind doesn't get the chance to discover anything for itself and it may not be able to put any pieces together, as it doesn't know how.

"Now look me in the eye and tell me that you didn't find out _anything_ on your own without being told."

Logan opened his mouth to tell Xavier just that, but shut his mouth just as quickly. He'd remembered Stryker's name without being told. _Dammit._ "You make it sound like one memory breeds more," he finally said. "All I found out was his name and that I didn't like him. And I sure as hell didn't need his name to know that."

"It's a start. You and everyone else were moving non-stop in those few days. You didn't exactly have time to remember much more." Logan heard him wheeling over to his bed and suddenly Xavier was perched over him, his hands on either side of Logan's head. "I'll see what I can find. Now, try to relax."

Xavier closed his eyes and Logan sucked in a breath saturated with Ororo's scent, slowing his pulse. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, the frown on her face tugging at his heart.

Despite what Xavier had told him, a very large part of Logan felt responsible for her condition. _But didn't I try to get her to talk to me these past five weeks? Didn't I warn her that holding everything inside would be too much for her to handle? This _is _her fault!_

But still, he desperately wished that he knew how to comfort her. Despite all he'd learned about her in the past few weeks, he still knew very little. He knew that she was headstrong and independent, he knew that she was dedicated to her friends and put them before herself, he knew that he'd do just about anything for her…

No, not just about. He'd do _anything_ for her. That day in the chamber, he'd done _everything_ for her.

Logan's heart jumped into his throat as he replayed what he'd done in those last few minutes of consciousness. He'd jumped off a bridge for her. He'd gotten himself electrocuted by her. And what the hell had he said?

"_You're the strongest person that I know! And I'm not going anywhere! I lo – "_

Logan gasped and Xavier pulled away with a deep frown, though his eyes weren't accusing. He'd probably heard everything.

"Well, there wasn't anything new, but I can tell you that the dreams you had while in Canada were most likely memories. You remembered specific voices and smells, which isn't very common for regular dreams."

Logan's eyes widened and his eyes flickered in Ororo's direction. "All of them?"

Xavier nodded, seemingly understanding which memory he was referring to. "She remembers it a bit differently, but she does remember. The day she and Scott rescued you and Rogue, she thought about it almost non-stop. She tried to convince herself that she wasn't really seeing the same man, as you look almost exactly the same as you did fifteen years ago. Though, your hair was longer then."

"I cut it," Logan replied with disinterest. Logan blinked hard, wondering if he should say anything to her. Part of him felt like, if he'd saved her all those years ago, then maybe they were destined to be together. The thought sounded ridiculous in his mind, but his heart knew that he wanted it to be true. But another part of him was angry that she hadn't told him. She'd known about a valuable piece of his past too, and she'd greeted him that day as though she were meeting him for the first time. He could have forgiven her if she'd forgotten him, but it seemed that she hadn't.

"Please don't," Xavier advised. "You know her well enough to know that she'll gladly rise to the challenge. Do you really think she needs that as soon as she wakes up?"

Logan didn't have to spare her another glance to know his answer. He hated the thought of adding more pain and sorrow to her at such a time. He might bring it up someday, but for now, the answer was no. "Is there anything I can do?" Logan asked slowly. "For the memories, I mean, to try to kick them into gear. Take some special drugs before I go to bed or meditate or something?"

Xavier looked genuinely surprised, but thought it over before answering. "I don't normally approve of drugs, and I honestly don't think that they'd have much of an effect on a system like yours. There are ways of lightly meditating before going to sleep that are supposed to help you sleep deeper, but in your case I think you might want to focus on actually sleeping at all."

It was worth a shot, though the thought of tearing apart another bed set in his sleep didn't appeal to him in the slightest.

A quiet _swish_ and the smell of burning wood signaled Scott's arrival into the medical wing, and Xavier pulled away from Logan. "I just finished running diagnostics," he said quietly. "Cerebro is fully functional."

"Thank you, Scott," Xavier said earnestly, leaving the medical wing. Scott stayed rooted to the spot, staring at Ororo's still form.

He turned his head ever so slightly in Logan's direction, and the corner of his mouth twitched down. "You're an absolute idiot," he said flatly.

"I've been called worse," Logan replied easily.

Scott turned his attention back to Ororo, his hand reaching out to her. It hovered hesitantly over her hand before he balled it into a fist and pulled it away, walking to the door. "Thank you for saving her," he muttered as he disappeared behind the door.

Logan watched her stomach steadily rise and fall in time with her breathing. The combination of that and her pulse slowly lulled him to sleep "What else was I supposed to do?" he whispered to her as he slipped into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Okay, time for some good news and some bad news…

Good news: I got a job!

Bad news: I'll be working about forty hours a week – well, that's good news for ME – which means that, between that time and the time that I spend with the fam, I won't be able to devote as much time to this story as I have in the past.

Good news: The next four chapters are more or less done, and the next twelve chapters after that - totally not kidding - have been roughly outlined, so you need not fear writer's block.

Bad news: When I'm tired and irritated – as I often become when dealing with the human race in general – all I want to do is lay in bed and listen to angry rap music. That means that I may not be in the mood to write.

Good news: I write on a daily basis. I'm not even kidding. While I'm not always working on THIS story, I do write every. single. day. If only a little.

Why might you care even a LITTLE about any of that? To be honest, you probably don't. If I was you, I wouldn't. In fact, I'm ME, and – looking back – I can say that I don't really care (except the job. CAN'T SAY IT ENOUGH!). But I – thoughtful person that I am – thought that perhaps my readers might appreciate fair warning if my updates don't come two or three times a week. As stated nearly a lifetime ago, I'll try to update at least once a week. That shouldn't be a problem for the next four weeks, but after that…

Whatever. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Toodles!


	54. Epiphany

Logan felt his features pull into a frown before he knew the reason why. He fought against consciousness, wanting to sleep just a little while longer, but eventually he was pulled to the surface and he realized what had roused him in the first place; Ororo was groaning, tossing and turning on her med table.

Logan pulled himself into a sitting position and gingerly slid off of his own table. Even his skin seemed to scream in protest to his movement, but he concentrated on his goal; getting to Ororo. The whimpers became louder still, and her movements more chaotic. Logan gently leaned over and placed his hands on her arms to still her. Her eyes snapped open and she gasped, sitting upright in a flash. Still not as steady as he'd hoped, the light shock that she gave him caused Logan to crumble to the floor with a groan.

"Logan?"

"…mmm…"

He felt cool hands on either side of his face and suddenly found his head on her lap. He cracked his eyes open and found himself lost in her eyes, which were free of any protective mask and shining with concern for him. He gave and inner shout of triumph. Whatever Xavier wanted to call her emotional outburst, it had seemed that it had been exactly what she needed. Though he'd admit that it bothered him that such extremes had been necessary to cure her of her inner turmoil.

"How are you feeling?" he asked quietly.

"Better than you, it would seem. What happened?"

Logan frowned. "You just shocked me a little. It wasn't that bad, and I guess I was asking for it. I should have said your name before I just went and touched you."

"I didn't zap you that hard, did I?"

"Not just now."

"That would imply that I did at some other time."

Logan slowly pulled himself upright, ignoring her offers of help. When he was sitting up and had finally situated himself, he stared hard into her eyes, and saw genuine confusion written all across her face. His heart stopped. "What exactly do you remember," he asked carefully.

She rolled her eyes. "We went to Alkali Lake to get the Cerebro parts, but Sabretooth was there stealing them for some scientist named Trask. You two got into a wild scrap after you _threw me_ into Peter." She paused to give him a pointed look. "Scott, Kurt, Peter and I tried to break those robots, but they were too fast, and I swear it was like they were learning how to fight."

"I think they were," he put in. "I'm not sure what the hell the deal with them is, but I don't doubt that Xavier is already on it. What then?" Logan had figured that she'd at least remember all of that.

"I tried to zap one, but somehow it deflected it and it shot me right in the chest. I…" She frowned. "I hit something… hard. I think it was Sabretooth. I went flying again, and after that…" She looked into his eyes, her own clouded with a touch of fear. "Darkness. And it was all so _close_…" She shivered.

For some reason, knowing that she remembered nothing that had happened between them in those few minutes made his heart sink like a battle ship. Her reaction to him had been borne of shock and nothing else. _No. it can't be _nothing_ else, or she wouldn't have done or said any of those things._

"What happened?" she asked hesitantly. "Were you there?"

He paused. Should he tell her everything that had happened? _Everything?_ Remembering his mistake in pulling away from her, he squared his shoulders. He wasn't going to assume that he knew what was best for her. She was a grown woman and he was sure that she wouldn't appreciate decisions being made for her. "Do you want me to tell you everything that happened?"

"Of course I do," she answered immediately.

He sighed heavily. Were their roles reversed, his answer would've been exactly the same. She wanted to know, and he wasn't going to deny her. Yet he couldn't help remembering that she'd held a valuable key to his past - or at least a significant one - and she'd chosen to say nothing to him. In all fairness, he hadn't asked, but how the hell was he supposed to know?

But, as Xavier had advised, he wasn't going to bring that up. He'd let her choose to tell him about it when she was ready. Until then, one of them had to be the first to trust the other.

"Okay. It was Sabretooth that you ran into. Both of you went to the ground…" He went into detail about everything that had happened; he told her about the hurricane, about opening the chest and how she was unresponsive until he'd touched her, and even how she'd nearly jumped his bones. Thankfully, she didn't become at all awkward or hesitant when he mentioned exactly what she'd done. But then, Ororo was a straightforward woman, and didn't seem to be the type to be bashful about something as natural as sex.

He told her everything that she'd said, everything that he'd said – conveniently leaving out what he'd _almost_ said – and told her as best he could about the tornadoes and earthquake and the other weather that she'd created and its intensity. He ended with her shocking him, her collapse over the side of the bridge, and how he'd jumped after her.

Ororo listened intently to him throughout his description, and remained silent when he was finally finished. Her expression was mostly blank, but he saw a variety of emotions flying past her eyes. Just as Logan was wishing that she'd say something, her mouth twisted into a nasty scowl.

"Are you out of your fucking mind, Logan," she yelled. "Do you have _any_ idea how dangerous that was? Why didn't you leave with Kurt when you had the chance?"

That certainly hadn't been the response he'd been expecting. He was too shocked to think of anything to say to that, other than, "I don't like teleporting."

He was more than a little surprised when he heard a quiet growl rumble in the back of her throat, and slowly got to his feet. She stood with ease and roughly yanked him upright, not looking even slightly sympathetic when he had to grip the table for support and balance. "This isn't funny," she snapped.

"Do I look like I'm laughing," he snapped back. "I feel like shit. No, scratch that. I feel like shit warmed over, but you don't hear me bitching and moaning about the extensive injuries that you gave me. Look at how you were acting only a few minutes ago and compare it to how you were acting a few _days_ ago! It was worth it!"

"That the hell are you – "

"Let me tell you why I think that you're feeling better after that meltdown. You've been holding everything underneath the surface. I don't know what you say to Kurt when you two have your little therapy sessions, but it certainly wasn't relieving the stress, which is what you really needed. As a result of all that pent up frustration, you made a storm that I'm sure would rival those on Jupiter. The professor himself said that if I hadn't been there to calm you down, you might've broken through the chamber and taken the entire continent to hell with your fit."

"You don't know that. I might've done that even with you inside, and you'd be the first to witness how terrible my power can be. And you think that the only reason that I talk to Kurt is because I need a 'therapy session'? It never occurred to you that I might like his company? That I might like _him_?"

The fact that she might like Kurt had occurred to him _several_ times, but now wasn't the time to turn the tables on himself. They were talking about her. "That's not what I mean. You know that he isn't strong enough to contend with you on a truly bad day. I'll bet you even know that I'm the only person that _can_ deal with such a thing, but instead of letting me in, you insist on pushing me away!"

"I feel like I can talk to Kurt about my problems, Logan. There are so many things that I just can't tell you."

"Why is it that you can trust Kurt with everything but you can't trust me with _anything_?"

"I _don't_ trust Kurt with everything. I…" She fell silent, her eyes unfocused as she seemed to struggle with what she wanted to add to that. But after a few beats, just as Logan was ready to throw in the towel, she caught his eyes again. She hid nothing in her gaze, her eyes as bright as ever. He saw her vulnerability and hesitance and even a little fear, but he also saw rock solid determination. "I trust him because he's harmless," she said quietly. "He can't hurt me like you can."

Her statement hung in the air between them. What she'd just admitted to, if Logan was interpreting her statement correctly, was that she cared about him. She cared about Logan more than she cared for Kurt. Well, perhaps not _more_, but her feelings for Logan ran deeper. Deep enough that she believed that he could hurt her if he wanted to…

"_When I asked him if my love for him was enough, he walked out the door without looking back."_

"_You left me because I'm not strong enough. You'll leave again."_

Clear as day, Logan then heard Jean's voice ringing in his head.

"_Logan, the good guy sticks around."_

He closed his eyes in defeat. Ororo had been telling the truth. Though he wasn't sure why she thought that he'd left because she wasn't strong enough for him, the fact remained that he had indeed left her. And perhaps her fear of being seen as weak in front of him was the reason that she'd fought so hard to keep her emotions under the surface. Did she fear that he viewed such a thing as emotion as a weakness? He himself had encouraged her to be weak, if only for a moment.

But perhaps he was assuming too much. He remembered Magneto accusing him of thinking that everything that happened had something to do with him. But this time, it really was about him, wasn't it? Her exact words had been, _"He can't hurt me like you can."_

Logan took a deep breath. "By that, do you mean that Kurt can't hurt you like I _did_?" She glared at him, but Logan knew the answer as easily as if she'd said it out loud. He'd pushed the right button. "I didn't know," he told her earnestly. "If you'd said something, _anything,_ when I was leaving…"

He stopped, seeing the flash of shock in her eyes before she threw up a mask of indifference. He nearly cried out in protest, but kept his mouth firmly closed. "I didn't have to say anything," she replied calmly. "I didn't ask you to stay, so I can't blame you for leaving. And, in all honesty, I didn't expect you to stay even if I _had_ asked, which is why I avoided getting hurt again and simply let you leave."

"But you did get hurt again."

"It was, and still is, my problem. I know that you're not the type to get emotionally attached to a particular place."

"Don't act like you know me that well," he snapped. "Just because I move from place to place doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to find one place to stay. And I may not wear my emotions like a brightly colored shirt, but that doesn't mean that I don't have them. All this time, has it _really_ escaped your notice that I've been steadily getting more and more attached to a particular person?"

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, but they felt so true that he didn't even bother trying to take them back. Logan and Ororo found themselves engaged in a silent standoff. She eyed him carefully, every bit as carefully as he was eying her. This conversation had taken them to an uncomfortable but absolute truth. And, if he could go by the way that she was looking at him, it seemed that she'd been avoiding it with as much vigor as he had, if not more. Neither of them had to say it, because both of them felt the shift in the air, like a sudden change in the weather.

They loved each other.

* * *

WHAT! Another cliffhanger? REALLY?!? I almost feel bad for leaving it like this. Almost.


	55. Acceptance

Okay, I was going to wait to put this up until Christmas, but I was bored. Plain and simple. Plus, I've edited this chapter exactly eight times and, quite frankly, I'd like to post it before I have it memorized. Enjoy!

* * *

Logan was sure that they'd been staring at each other in silence for at least half an hour. Obviously he couldn't be sure of what she was thinking, and his own mind was in too much of an uproar to even contemplate what might be going on in her mind.

Of course, his first thought was: _No_.

He didn't love her.

Did he?

He loved Jean.

He loved Marie.

But what he felt for Ororo hardly compared to what he felt for Jean or Marie. Jean had been like a sister to him, and Marie like a daughter. Ororo…

Logan was sure that panic flashed in his eyes, but the woman standing across from him made no comment – and, in fact, had a similar look in her eyes from time to time. The only word that came to mind in relation to Ororo, that truly felt right, was 'match.'

She was his match.

_Oh, hell!_

He was right, to a certain extent. He didn't love Ororo…

He was _in love _with Ororo.

After that thought, the first feeling to surface was stupidity. Why had it taken him so long to differentiate between _loving_ someone and being _in love _with someone? It seemed now that the difference was blatantly obvious, yet the concept had eluded him until that revelation. It hadn't taken him long to decide that he loved Marie as a daughter. It had been just as easy to accept that he loved Jean as a sister. Why had he fought Ororo so hard?

He'd been staring at her without really seeing her for the past few minutes, and when he actually focused on her, he suddenly knew why it had been such a trial to admit to himself that he was in love with her.

She looked exactly the same. She was still approximately four feet away from him. She still had her arms crossed defiantly and was standing squarely, as though ready to fight. Her eyes were still ocean blue, and her scent still reminded him of a rainforest after a downpour. It was Ororo, same as ever.

But the distance between them now felt like oceans. Her stance warned him to stay back, yet her scent enticed him like a steak might entice a starving man. And her eyes…

His breath caught.

Her eyes reflected the same inner conflict that he was experiencing. She was at war with her thoughts and emotions as well. She was also over-analyzing her actions and feelings, trying to disprove what Logan already knew; that he loved her. She raked him over with a careful gaze and after a few moments she gave a small sigh that sounded suspiciously like defeat. She caught his eyes again and he could see it as perfectly as if she'd said it out loud. She loved him too.

But he wanted to hear her say it. More than _anything_ he wanted to hear her say it, but he knew that such a declaration was an impossibility for her. She'd already made herself vulnerable enough. And, considering the similarities that she saw between her relationship with T'Challa and whatever relationship she had with Logan, such vulnerability had to be more than a little uncomfortable. It would be a while before Logan got to hear her utter those words to him.

But that didn't mean that he had to endure an 'I know' every time he said it to her, did it? Why did either of them have to say it right this second? Truth be told, for Logan, it was enough to simply know. While he'd admit that it'd be nice to hear, he was content to wait for the time being, so long as he knew.

And, God above, he'd _never_ get tired of knowing that she loved him.

"You weren't scared of me?" she asked quietly. "In the chamber. After I screamed at you? After I... hurt you?"

He paused before answering. He'd told her adamantly that her scars didn't scare him in the least. He'd seen some of those scars in the form of her insecurities and the pain that she struggled to keep under the surface. To be perfectly honest, some of those things terrified him. But probably not in the way that she thought. He chose his words carefully, hoping that she'd truly listen to him instead of assuming that she knew what he meant. _Like I've done to her on more than one occasion._

"I was terrified," he admitted, "but not for myself. I didn't expect such a breakdown, and I wasn't sure what it would do to you. If you'd come out better on the other side, or if you'd stay the same, or only get worse. Or if all of those old wounds would just leave an empty shell of the person that I… that I've gotten to know so well."

Her eyes showed only the barest hint of distrust, but Logan could see her wall of resolve crumbling. She wanted to believe him.

"I hate heights of almost any kind," he continued. "Always have. Not sure why. If I'd been afraid for myself, I might've taken a second to think about it before I jumped off the Cerebro bridge to catch you. In that split second of indecision, I probably wouldn't've been able to catch you. But none of that went through my mind when I jumped. Nothing did. I just knew that I needed to catch you and break your fall. So no, I wasn't scared of you. I was scared _for_ you."

Her eyes filled with tears, but she refused to let them fall, blinking furiously in an effort to make them disappear. "I don't… no one's ever…" For the first time since he'd met her, she truly seemed to be at a loss for words.

Logan crossed the small distance to her and grabbed her chin, gently raising it so that she'd look him in the eye. Why did she think that she had to be so strong for the benefit of others? "Just cry, damn it." She sighed heavily and a single tear slid down her perfect cheek. Without thinking twice or hesitating, he pulled her against his chest and caught her lips with his.

She responded immediately, her hands sliding up his chest and resting on the back of his neck, pulling him down to her level. Logan's hands snaked up her back and tangled in her hair, unable to get enough of the silky yet thick texture. The way she felt, the way she smelled… Logan could drown in the sensations.

Their kiss was slow and lazy, not at all as spontaneous as the first or as demanding as the second. Logan slowly migrated away from her lips, trailing down the line of her jaw and kissing away the crystal tears that had fallen. He paused by her ear for half a second, but caught himself before he said anything to her. He'd only come to the realization that he loved her moments ago, yet he already felt an unexplainable pull inside of him, encouraging him to tell her. Possibly it was because he knew that she wanted to hear him say it just as much as he wanted to say it.

But he didn't have to say it. She knew that he loved her. How could she not? Everything that he'd endured on her behalf and purposefully put himself through for her benefit alone… She knew. And as far as actually saying it, it would simply be a battle of wills. Logan had a feeling that Ororo would win, but that didn't mean that he had to forfeit right away.

His pause was long enough to make Ororo impatient and she began planting light kisses on his throat. He swallowed hard, wondering if she knew the extent of what her touch was starting to do to him. Again, he felt the sensation of his skin crawling, like light snaps of static were exploding beneath his skin. But it wasn't as overwhelming as it had been the first time. In fact, it was so light that it made Logan burn for more. So much that his entire body began to tremble and his breath hitched.

"He called you Jimmy," she murmured against his skin. "Is that your real name? Not Logan?"

"James Logan," he said thickly, hardly paying attention to what he was saying. He gave a half-ass attempt to dig up some of his dreams/memories and he remembered people calling him Logan even back then. Yes, Logan was probably his last name.

Ororo's tears were certainly gone now, and Logan could tell that she was delighting in the effect she had on him. He felt her lips pull into a devilish smirk against his skin. "Do you prefer James?"

He opened his mouth to speak and, just that quickly, he forgot the question. She continued assaulting him with sensations that rendered him incapable of standing still or breathing evenly, showing no mercy. His head tilted back without his permission to give her better access.

"From you? Y-yes... _Huh?_"

She hummed. "Then James it is." As she spoke, he felt her teeth lightly graze his throat. He nearly vocalized how badly he was aching for her.

But a loud '_ahem' _brought them both back to earth before Logan could gather enough oxygen to moan. Or whisper. Or scream. He couldn't be entirely sure of what he would've done, but it didn't exactly matter now. He reluctantly pulled away from her and glared at Xavier when he was finally able to focus on something other than the fire that her lips had left behind on his skin. Xavier aimed an amused smile at Ororo, and Logan glanced at her, noting that her scowl was more frightening than his own. She was indignant at being interrupted too, and that brought Logan some small satisfaction.

"You're feeling better, Storm." Xavier tapped his temple, wearing a happy smile. "You aren't trying as hard to shut the world out. Perhaps that outburst was just the thing that you needed, though I must stress the importance of never doing it again. You're emotions are as wild as the weather, but even you can't _control_ the weather, Storm."

"I'm done caging the beast," she said, relaxing her tense look. "I thought that restraint was what I needed, and look where that got me. And you're right about my emotions, so it would make sense that I don't try to control my emotions too much either."

"I think the answer is controlled moderation," Xavier said. "If you let yourself get a little overwhelmed every now and then, it won't become so out of control." Logan nodded. That certainly made sense. "But you're not out of the woods yet, recovery wise, and neither are you, Logan. I'd advise bed rest for the next two days at least, but I know that such advice would fall on deaf ears."

_Not necessarily,_ Logan thought, biting the inside of his cheek to keep a foolish smile off of his face. _Not the 'bed' part, anyhow._

If Xavier had heard him, he didn't acknowledge it. "Instead," he continued, "I'll request that you to _try_ to rest. Move about the mansion, as I'm sure you would anyway, but try not to do anything too…" He looked between them, and Logan was sure that he saw a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. "…strenuous."

Logan was shocked – and a little impressed – with Xavier's boldness. He _had_ heard Logan's thoughts. But Xavier looked Logan dead in the eye and shook his head fractionally.

Logan was unsure of how to interpret that, and simply shrugged as he followed Ororo out of the medical wing. It took a few seconds for it to process in his mind, but then he understood what Xavier had meant by his denial that he'd heard Logan's thoughts.

As if on cue, Ororo muttered, "How else are we supposed to exercise?"

This time, Logan couldn't bite back the foolish smile that spread across his face. And, in all honesty, he didn't want to. He caught her in his arms and carried her down the gleaming halls bridal style. She gave him a fake scowl, to which he grinned wickedly. "We'll just have to be creative," he murmured against her hair.

* * *

So, if you want to find out the steamy details of their 'creative exercise' check out 'Pent Up Passion'. If not, there should be a 'Next' button around here somewhere...


	56. Routine

Happy Birthday to me! I turned 20 today, and my gift to myself is finally posting this chapter. And some sugar cookies that I'm baking downstairs, but this post is something that we can ALL enjoy. Ugh, I need a life... Enjoy!

* * *

As Xavier had requested, Logan and Ororo took it easy for the next few days. Somewhat. For the most part. But the result was that the other adults had work loads that were a little heavier. They were all too busy to spare either Logan or Ororo a second glance, and so the pair had only each other for company.

While that might've bothered Ororo in the past, after their mutual revelation she didn't seem the least bit bothered that she only had Logan for company. Although they both realized that their feelings had changed drastically – or rather, they finally realized the extent of feelings that had always been there – their dynamic didn't much change from their usual playful banter. In Logan's opinion, that made their moments alone all the more exciting.

While they didn't hang on each other night and day like Bobby and Marie did, Logan sometimes felt himself drawn to a section of the house for no particular reason, only to find Ororo there, patiently waiting for him as though she'd called out to him telepathically.

They both let their guard down for the other, and Logan was ecstatic when she held nothing of herself back. He learned a lot about her, and he told her as much about himself as he could. Though they both still refused to vocalize how they felt, Logan knew how she felt just as surly as she knew how he felt. It was evident in the way that he shivered when they were alone and she called him James, or the smile that played across her face when he called her darling.

Neither could ignore how deep their feelings ran the night that Ororo crept into his room. Though they'd been 'together', they weren't yet at the point where they could sleep in the same bed together. He wasn't sure what her reservations had been, but he'd been afraid that he might have a nightmare and cut her in his sleep. In the back of his mind, he couldn't escape the felling that something similar had happened in the past that he couldn't remember.

Ororo had been anything but stealthy about it; she'd flung his his door wide open as though she owned the place and had roughly snatched his pillow out from under his head. Before he could protest, she tossed another pillow over his face and promptly headed for the door. Pausing to look at him, she'd given him a small smile and simply said, "I think you and I are going to sleep much better tonight."

While the pillow she'd thrown at him looked just as ordinary as the one she'd taken from him, his new pillow had been hers, and it was saturated with her scent. Settling into bed again, he was asleep in a matter of minutes, and had slept for a solid fourteen hours without tearing anything apart in his sleep. The next afternoon when he went to thank her, she was still fast asleep, and had remained so for another three hours.

When Scott noticed Ororo's drastic change, it was clear that, at first, he had been skeptical of the reasoning for it. He'd thrown Logan warning glances every once in a while, but even he couldn't deny that she seemed much happier. After a few days, he soon returned to ignoring them as he did everyone else.

Thankfully, Scott had stopped trying to provoke everyone and seemed to have fallen into a spell of numbness. When he was addressed, he was polite but detached, and if he wasn't specifically needed, he'd direct the problem to someone else. In Logan's opinion, that was progress, but Xavier didn't seem to think so. Once Scott had managed to fix Cerebro and get it running, he'd moved on to the training room that he was building. Xavier had asked Ororo to talk to Scott more than once, but she refused so quickly that Logan didn't get the chance to tell her that it wasn't a good idea. While Ororo and Scott had become more civil, she feared he might lash out at her again if she tried to interfere with his personal feelings.

Logan couldn't've said it better himself. What Scott needed most was to sort out his feelings for himself. At the very least, he needed to do that before he started talking to others about how he felt. Logan knew that Xavier saw the logic in that, but he suspected that the professor was pained by the self inflicted torture that Scott was putting himself through. Still, everyone could see that their concern for Scott only upset him more, so they all let him be for the time being.

Logan, personally, had become too busy to attempt such a feat anyway. He'd even fallen into a sort of schedule, which was very unlike him. And yet, he didn't much mind.

As both Xavier and Ororo had stressed that they'd need all of the help they could get, Logan had volunteered to help teach. He sure as hell wasn't going to teach physics or English, but the suggestion that he do combat training for the older students and physical education for the younger ones to expel some energy greatly appealed to him. He and Kurt worked together, and Logan gradually found out that he was a better teacher than he'd thought he would be. When the children went out for recess, he saw some of their basketball skills improve, and more wanted to play soccer or tag instead of reading or talking. The ones they taught combat – which was a small class consisting only of Peter, Bobby, Marie, Kitty Pryde, and Jubilation Lee – were all getting the hang of some of the techniques that he was teaching them, and even enjoyed sparring on occasion.

And Kurt turned out to be a better fighter than Logan ever would've given him credit for. He was acrobatic, knew quite a bit about mixed martial arts, and had a lot more muscle than he appeared to, courtesy of his baggy clothing and hunched stature. Even when he didn't teleport, his movements were precise and lightning fast. He even taught Logan a thing or two about moving his body to increase speed and using flexibility to one's advantage. Logan had been shocked when he'd heard Kurt call Mystique mother, but he was starting to see the similarities between the two weren't limited to appearance.

And Ororo's relationship with Kurt hadn't changed in the slightest. Now that Logan was spending more time with Ororo, he could see that their friendship was exactly that and nothing more. Kurt didn't give Ororo lingering or wistful glances, nor did he give Logan the cold shoulder. When he found out that they were together – they still weren't exactly sure what to call it – he'd seemed genuinely excited for the two of them. Everyone that found out about Logan and Ororo seemed to be excited about it, thought Logan wasn't sure why some of the female students seemed to be more excited about it than he was.

For five months the X-Men lived in relative harmony, every now and then being sent off on a small mission that required mutant intervention or one of their particular talents. The five eldest students had even come along once, though it was clear that Lee wasn't yet ready for the field when her wild emotions had caused a car to explode after she'd been insulted for her choice of clothing.

She'd begged and pleaded, but Logan had been firm in telling her that she needed to work hard on her control if she wanted to come again. As Marie had become a surrogate daughter to him in the first days that he'd known her, so too had Lee and Kitty in the months that he taught them combat and saw them around the school.

Kitty proved to be the most reckless, just like him. Because she could become intangible, she had nothing to fear. She worked hard on all of the combat techniques that Logan showed her, and was always ready for more when everyone else was too tired and wanted to call it quits. Kurt always seemed happy to continue sparring with her long after everyone else was spent and, as a result, Kitty soon became a force to be reckoned with. Logan admired her courage and determination, but had also had to be firm in punishing her for not following a direct order.

"Are you telling me that _you_ follow every order that you're given on every mission," she accused, pouting as the rest of the X-Men got ready to go on a mission.

"More often than not," he replied casually.

"Which means 'no,' you don't follow every single order that you're given. So why am I –"

"Do as I say, not as I do," Logan interrupted.

She fixed him with a scathing glare that actually made Logan flinch. "Ugh! You _SUCK_!" she screeched, stomping away and leaving Logan paralyzed in place. He'd seen others before him get yelled at by Kitty, Lee, and Marie, but never before had he been on the receiving end of such anger.

He didn't want her to be mad at him, and nearly folded and told her that she could come, but a pair of slim arms wrapped around his waist from behind and held him in place. "She'll get over it," Ororo purred in his ear. "By the time we get back she'll be acting like nothing happened."

"I can attest to that," Marie said as she tugged her gloves on. Before she could say more, Peter wiggled his eyebrows at her.

"Ooo!" He grinned at her. "We learned a new word today, did we?"

She punched his stomach with a good bit of strength, but of course the large Russian didn't bat an eye. "Shut up, Peter! It was on my 'Word of the Day' calendar."

"Last week," Bobby said with a laugh as he shut his locker and adjusted his collar.

Logan chuckled. He didn't doubt that Kitty was angry with him now, but Ororo was right. He was sure that she'd be sugary sweet the next time they were getting ready to go on a mission. Everything was brighter, including the woman standing behind him. He turned around in Ororo's arms and smirked down at her. "Ready?" he asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she returned. "We're only after a guy who's trying to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge as a distraction so that he can rob seven banks at the same time."

He dropped a quick kiss on her lips. "Easy day," he said with a smirk.


	57. Thrill

Xavier had made sure that the X-Men were well briefed on the mission before letting them take off in the jet. Each of them knew their exact job and, if all went smoothly, then they'd be back within the hour.

The mutant, who they were – for the moment – calling Multiple Man, had rigged explosives to the weakest point of the Brooklyn Bridge; underneath and right in the middle, as far from the support beams as possible. As far as Xavier could see into his mind, he was going to get away from the bridge in a car, and he'd have enough time to get away before the explosion caused mass panic. With a collapsing bridge as a distraction, he planned to multiply himself – hence the name – and scatter to the seven banks that he intended to rob.

First priority was to get the explosives as far from the bridge as possible and disable the timer. After that, it was evidence for the police. Second priority was to catch Multiple Man before he got as far as getting into his car to get away. With the crisis averted and skittish humans none the wiser, the X-Men could drop Multiple Man off at the mutant prison and be back home in time to watch their TV shows that they were so fond of. Or, in Logan's case, he'd have time to linger in a nice hot shower, preferably not alone…

"Are you listening to a word I'm saying, Logan?" Ororo asked, her barely concealed annoyance pulling Logan back to the present.

"Somewhat," he replied easily.

"He zones me out all the time," Marie muttered from the seat behind him.

"I do not 'zone you out', Rogue, nor was I zoning you out just now, Storm."

"He doesn't like flying, remember," the Russian said, a smile in his voice. "And since he's sitting in the co-pilots chair and has the best view of the world below, he had to go to his happy place."

"Thank you, Peter," Logan said tonelessly, turning to Ororo. "What were you saying?"

She shrugged. "Mostly I was just thinking out loud, speculating on whether or not the copies of Multiple Man are going to be solid or phantoms."

"Like Kitty's intangibility?" he asked.

"Precisely. But, as Peter said, you were in your happy place…" She trailed off and the teens behind him snickered at his expense. Part of him wanted to retort and tell her _exactly_ where his happy place had been, but he kept silent. Grinning wickedly, he decided that he'd simply have to _show_ her later.

With reluctance, he pushed that thought back and zeroed in on the approaching bridge. From the angle they were at, it looked the same as ever. Then again, the explosives were supposed to be in the underbelly of the bridge. Also, they were still half a mile away.

Ororo engaged the _Blackbird's _cloaking device and dropped lower. Once they were under the bridge and the explosives, Ororo would disable the bomb's timer while Logan and Peter loaded the heavy explosives. Bobby and Marie would snoop around for Multiple Man, and hopefully they'd be done loading the explosives as soon as Multiple Man was located.

They did exactly that, and everything went smoothly. The problem came when Bobby and Marie were trying to get Multiple Man into the jet. Until then, he hadn't struggled, but he chose that moment to shake both of them off and almost send them flying over the wings of the jet. Winking at Marie and blowing Ororo a kiss, he vanished into thin air.

The X-Men froze, all staring dumbly at the place that he'd just been standing. "A copy," Ororo hissed in anger. Peter quickly snatched the detonator as angry static snapped around her fingers and licked up her arms. "This just got complicated." At that moment, Ororo's communicator whistled loudly and she snapped it open.

"He changed his mind at the last minute," Xavier said, his tone tight and every bit as frustrated as Ororo's.

"Yeah, we figured. What's going on?"

"He decided that he'd be more efficient if he robbed the banks exactly as he blew up the bridge. What does the timer read?"

She glanced at the timer, which was only about the size of a military walkie talkie. "Ten minutes and counting."

Xavier swore under his breath, but it was loud enough for Logan to catch. Absent the circumstances, he might've been surprised or even amused, but at the moment he could only empathize.

"I've already sent Nightcrawler, Cyclops and Shadowcat out there," he said finally. "That takes care of three of the seven locations…"

"Provided he hasn't changed his mind about that too," Logan said, his tone only slightly irate. There was no way that Xavier could've foreseen that Multiple Man would change his mind, but he wasn't the least bit irked by the change in plans. But he wanted to sound as though he was, because he'd be damned if he let them know that he was indulging in the guilty pleasure of being excited. All of their other missions had been done by the book; quick, easy, painless, but most of all… boring. A quick change in plans made it slightly more exciting.

"Still seven banks, still in the locations I specified," Xavier said shortly. "And he's closing in on all of them as we speak. Storm, you'll still need to disable the bomb – "

"Which I can't," she snapped. "This thing was either put together by a five year old or by Tony Stark himself, because I've never in my life seen this kind of wiring."

"Magneto," Logan and Xavier grumbled in unison. Having that name attached to this mission made Logan immediately regret wanting a little more excitement in their missions. They needed to think fast, because his sharp eyes didn't miss that the timer had just hit nine minutes.

How were they going to get to the other locations? Kurt, Kitty and Scott were headed to three of the locations, presumably the ones that were farthest from the Brooklyn Bridge. That left four more locations, one for Bobby, one for Marie, one for Peter, and one for Logan. That left Ororo with the task of fooling around with the bomb, and he'd be damned if he let her work on trying to disable that thing until the last minute. It wasn't like she could become intangible when it finally went off...

His eyes widened.

"Which site did you send Shadowcat to?" Logan asked Xavier.

"Site four," came the immediate answer.

Logan turned to address Ororo. "We can't unload the bomb, so we have to take it with us, right? What if you dropped each of us off at the remaining sites and went to get Kitty. If you can't figure out how to disable it in time, she can make you intangible and you two will be fine."

"And the jet?" she asked.

Logan bit his lip before snapping, 'Fuck the jet!' His concern was Ororo, not the jet. But he had to admit that the jet was necessary, and it sure as hell wouldn't be cheap to replace it. "Could she make the jet intangible too? Or maybe she could hold on to the bomb while it explodes and it'll be harmless."

"Can she do that?" Bobby asked, worry etched across his face.

"I don't know," Ororo said, frowning. "Either might work, but there's always the chance that _neither _will work."

Logan nodded. He'd spit out the idea as it was formulating in his mind. He hadn't had time to consider that it might not work, and he was glad that it had been Ororo's first thought.

"What about Jubilee?" Marie asked. "If anyone knows about explosives, it'd be her."

"Cyclops and the others probably don't have time to go back and pick her up," Logan mumbled. "And we can't waste time trying to figure out how to disable it like this…"

"Xavier can help," Peter said, his accent thick in his excitement. "He does mind control as well as telepathy, yes? He can use Cerebro to create a link between Storm and Jubilee so that they can see what the other sees and think what the other thinks. Storm will physically be working on it, but Jubilee can tell her what to do."

"An excellent idea!" Xavier announced, sounding less grim about the situation. "Storm, drop the others off at the remaining sites while I establish a link between you and Jubilee. If she can't figure out how to disable the bomb either, then perhaps Mr. Stark will be our next call." And with that, the connection was terminated, and the X-Men scrambled back into the jet.

_Let's hope we have time to call Tony Stark,_ Logan thought, eyeing the timer distastefully. It read seven minutes and thirty-five seconds.


	58. Terror

Once everyone was inside the jet and safely buckled in, Ororo maneuvered the jet away from the Brooklyn Bridge and headed towards one of the banks that Multiple Man planned on robbing. Not a full minute into the flight, relief washed over Logan as Ororo's entire aura seemed to change right before his eyes.

Her posture wasn't quite as straight, her eyes were wide and curious as a child's, and she began examining the bomb with renewed interest. When she chewed on the corner of her lips and began thoughtfully cracking her knuckles one by one, Logan could be absolutely positive that Xavier had managed to form a link or a bond or some type of communication between Ororo and Lee. Lee always did those things when she was thinking hard.

He breathed another sigh of relief as she examined the bomb closely, until he noticed that she was piloting the jet with less than half of her attention. More than a little apprehensive, Logan tried not to pay attention to her lack of attention. He had to have faith that Ororo was at least _somewhat_ paying attention.

But, dammit, 'somewhat' didn't quite cut it when you ought to be flying an aircraft. Despite the fact that the autopilot was capable of flying the jet when she punched in the coordinates, Logan preferred having Ororo behind the control yoke, not a damn computer system. A computer couldn't analyze a situation, make a decision and act accordingly based on past experiences and common knowledge. At least, he'd never known a computer that could do that, nor did he ever care to.

He knew that they weren't expecting aerial resistance or anything, but it still bothered him that a computer was in control of the jet. He was truly torn between wanting her focus all of her attention on the aircraft and wanting her to focus all of her attention on the bomb. But he remained silent. This was no time for him to let his fears distract her. And a distraction to her would certainly be a distraction to Lee, since their minds were connected and Lee's attention span was much shorter than Ororo's.

He did however, feel the need to tell the children that all of them were being dropped off first. In the event that Ororo and Lee couldn't disable the bomb in time, at least the children would be safe in their locations. It appeared that they'd have time to drop each of them off at separate locations, but Logan was keeping one eye on the bomb's timer at all times, just in case.

And Logan sure as hell wasn't leaving the jet until he was sure that Ororo had disabled the bomb. And if she couldn't figure out how to disable it… well, fuck the jet. Xavier would understand that Ororo's life meant more than a few hundred thousand dollars to replace the _Blackbird_. And as for Multiple Man… if he got away with robbing one bank, the police could handle it. Just because the X-Men functioned to help a weaker species, that didn't mean that they had to do all the work.

Marie was first to leave, racing inside the bank to meet her adversary. The next two banks were fairly close, and Peter and Bobby were in their own locations in only a few minutes. But, as they were nearing Logan's location, he saw that the bomb had only three minutes left until it went off.

He watched with agitated patience as Ororo lifted and twisted the bomb and the detonator, examining it from every possible angle. Logan vowed to himself that, the moment the timer hit one minute and thirty seconds, he was going to act. Until then, he racked his brain, contemplating exactly what that act might be.

He began sweating as the seconds ticked down and nothing came to him. The timer was at two minutes, and Ororo gaveand excited cry as she made a dive for the control yoke. Pulling roughly on it, the jet rocketed high into the sky.

More than a little startled, Logan yelped in surprise too, both at Ororo and at the swift ascension of the jet. He grabbed onto the back of one of the chairs and held on as though his life depended on it. They kept climbing, higher and higher, until it seemed that they were level with the clouds. He eyed the timer distastefully as Ororo finally stepped away from the control yoke. One minute and sixteen seconds.

_Well, that's fucking fabulous,_he thought, gripping the back of the chair tighter still as Ororo moved about in a hurry. _How the hell do we escape from that thing way up here?_

"Are you going to help me? Even a little?" Ororo asked impatiently.

"What the hell are you doing," Logan countered, reluctant to move from his current position.

"I'm moving the explosives to the ramp. That way, when we open the hatch, they'll spill out."

Logan turned that over in his mind for only a few seconds before he began helping her. It didn't seem too unreasonable to let the bomb explode in midair. And by the time it reached the earth, it would probably just be ash, which Ororo could carry away in a breeze without batting an eye. Brilliant, actually.

The slight tilt of the jet made it easier to move the heavy explosives to the ramp, and when they were done they had thirty-seven seconds left. She hovered above the explosives, clearly trembling, though from fear or excitement, Logan wasn't sure. It concerned him when he recognized a few mannerisms that weren't hers; shifty eyes, nervously wringing her hands, the wild gleam in her eyes…

These were all symptoms that Lee displayed when she was about to do something that she _knew_ was going to get her into trouble. But, more than once, Lee had stated that whatever punishment she would receive was worth it.

No, Logan didn't like seeing that same look in Ororo's eyes one bit.

When the bomb hit fifteen seconds, she turned to him with barely concealed excitement. "When I say so, hit the button to lower the ramp."

Okay… He was fine with that, but why the hell was _she_ still on the ramp? Did she _want_ to go flying out of the jet with the explosives?

"Ororo, are you sure…"

"Now!"

"Ororo!"

"_Now_, dammit!"

Logan hit the button and the ramp lowered. As predicted, the explosives spilled out and Ororo went tumbling after.

His heart turned to ice in the instant that Ororo was uncoordinated in her fall. He ran to the edge of the ramp and stared after in fascination, his own fear of heights temporarily forgotten as he was mesmerized by the effortless way that Ororo was able to somersault and gain control of herself in the air, as though she weighed nothing at all.

She had her hands thrown out in front of her and Logan felt an overwhelming calm flood his senses. This was where she belonged; in the sky. And she knew was she was doing. So, too, did Lee.

Lee couldn't figure out how to disable it the bomb, as too many wires with the wrong colors had been crossed. She knew a thing or two about explosives, but she was no SWAT soldier. She could, however, gauge the size of the blast from the weight of the explosives and the type of powder that had been used. She also knew how far it would stretch and even the heat intensity of such a blast, depending on the spark.

With that information in Ororo's mind, the weather witch knew that she could change the air pressure to create a kind of shield or force field that could contain the blast. Ororo wasn't sure that she could contain it entirely, hence the reason they were nearly level with the clouds. But, at such a height, she could test that theory with no chance of anyone getting hurt.

Not a full two seconds after she and the explosives had spilled out, they ignited. In what seemed like a circle that was bigger even than the jet, the explosion burned and thundered and roared to life, the sound deafening and the color blinding to all three. But the blast was never able to journey outside of the pressurized bubble that Ororo had created, though it certainly strained and expanded it.

"…_Some mutants… talents are almost limitless…omega-level…power knows no bounds…immortal…"_

All of these thoughts flooded their joined minds and, as one, they understood how Ororo was able to do such a thing. She was one of the most powerful classes of mutant in the world. Though her powers were only weather related, she could bend a few rules to suit her needs, allowing her to do just about anything she desired – like breathe underwater or use pressurized air as a shield.

Ororo knew that she had power, and lots of it. But she only dipped into her true potential every once in a while, testing limits and theories every now and then so that her powers wouldn't overwhelm her. That's what her shield had been; an opportunity to test an ability that she wasn't sure that she had. Until now.

She returned her thoughts to the blast, frowning thoughtfully. Because of the altitude, the thin air had provided less of an explosion. As a result, the blast hadn't been nearly as big as it could've been. Lee hadn't calculated for that, and while Ororo had successfully contained the blast, she'd certainly broken a sweat. Disconcerting, considering just how big the explosion had been even at this altitude; if Ororo hadn't brought it up so high, she might not have been able to contain it entirely.

But that was food for thought for another time. She'd never done such a thing before, and the reason she'd brought it so high was specifically because she hadn't known if she could do it. But she _had_ done it, and that alone offered enough elation to let go of the exact science of _how_ she'd done it. She idly wondered what she would've done if it hadn't worked at all. She'd been very close to the blast, the barrier of pressurized air notwithstanding…

And just like that, Ororo felt the absence of the Asian teenager in her mind. Then Logan felt the absence of Ororo in his mind. He gasped as the connection was severed, everything he saw and heard, felt and thought now under his control once more. That had to have been Xavier's doing; a way to show Logan that he had nothing to fear and that Ororo knew what she was doing.

As if that were enough to subdue his fear for her! Despite being inside her mind, Logan had no idea what the hell she'd been thinking in doing such a thing! It must've been Lee's influence! He could just picture the smug look on her face as she sat back in the mansion. "Totally worth it," she was probably muttering to herself, the miscreant!

Logan pushed his anger back, his fear for Ororo's safety easily overwhelming it. She was still floating in the air, still holding on to the pressure bubble that she'd created, and still seemed to be thinking about what she'd just done. Logan slowly edged back, wanting to put some distance between himself and the lip of the ramp.

Ororo dropped her arms, letting go of her shield. Wind rushed around them, so powerful that it rocked the jet back. Air rushed into the jet through the open ramp as well, but it had the effect of blowing into a bottle; the tilt of the jet threw Logan back, and he lost his footing. But the draft pushed him forward, and when he reached out to grab something to steady himself…

Nothing.

Nothing around, above, or _below_ him.

* * *

Ah, another cliffhanger. Sometimes I just can't help myself… :)

Anywho, now I know we were all jonesing for a little Iron Man action in this segment (I certainly was) and I'm sorry to disappoint, but you needn't worry. He was mentioned for a reason, we just need to be patient.


	59. Conniption

Admittedly, that wasn't much of a cliffhanger. Oh well… points for trying? Or maybe points for posting so quickly?

* * *

Gravity seemed to hesitate only for a moment before throwing him full force to the earth below. Logan was gripped with panic so powerful that he stopped breathing, his mind shutting down completely. He heard only the whistle of wind in his ears, only felt gravity pulling him down to an inevitable doom. Too scared to even scream, he simply let himself fall.

Until he collided with something and his descent slowed. But it was only for a moment; whatever he'd hit, it broke away from him and he continued falling. Then air began rushing at him, both from above and from below. He tried not to think about it, but it was hard to put out of his mind when the draft below him grew so powerful that he slowly began moving in the other direction. _What in the hell…_

He was falling up?

Logan closed his eyes, his fear slowly giving way to confusion. Strange as it was, the sensation felt familiar to him; the air around him pulsing as it pushed him higher and higher. When he opened his eyes again, he collided with the ceiling of the jet. Hard. He fell again, but hit the floor of the ramp a fraction of a second later.

His blood was still pounding in his ears but slowly, as he began to calm down, he heard Ororo's voice break through his panicked haze. She was apologizing, explaining what had happened. Something about the pressure of the air inside her shield and that she hadn't expected that it would come out in such a rush…

Logan didn't even attempt to understand what she was saying. He simply let her hold him as she continued rambling, her fingers knuckle deep in his hair as she tried to soothe him. And Logan, shivering and shaking like a wet cat, clung to her perhaps too tightly, trying to speak. But nothing wanted to work properly, his mind included. When he was finally able to locate his voice and a semi-coherent thought, he said the very first thing that came to mind. "I'm heavy."

She drew back and stared at him with wide eyes and a flat expression. But soon she smiled softly and kissed his forehead. "Very heavy," she agreed quietly. "I had to use the wind to push you back into the jet. I tried to catch you, but you're about three hundred pounds of metal and muscle and we both started falling." Logan shuddered again at the thought of them _both _falling, his eyes traveling to the still open hatch. Ororo quickly got up and closed it before returning to Logan's side, her eyes wide with apology. "Can you get up or do you want to just sit here for a minute?"

Logan frowned as he considered how he wanted to answer that. He didn't want to get up. It felt as though more than his nerves had been rattled by that little episode. The bomb, the explosion, and – of course – falling out of the jet. All of it was, more or less, her fault. Before he could stop and think about what he was doing, Logan was on his feet, fixing Ororo with a threatening glare. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" he snapped. "Did you, even for a moment, stop and think about what the hell you were doing?!"

Her mouth hung open in obvious shock. "I…"

"Were you even thinking at all? Do you have _any_ idea of what you would've done if that little stunt hadn't worked?!"

She frowned, her eyes morphing from shock to anger. "I told you I was sorry…"

Logan grabbed her arms and resisted the urge to shake her a little. "You idiot, I'm not talking about me! I'm talking about the bomb! You could've killed yourself! Do you realize that?!"

"We _both_ would've been killed if I hadn't done something," she said, her anger seemingly evaporating.

"So let it explode in midair next time!" Logan wrapped his arms around her protectively, shaking from more than shock. "God above, _never_ do that again!"

She hesitated only a moment before wrapping her arms around Logan's shoulders. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "After almost half a year, it's still strange to think that someone else could be so afraid on your behalf."

"You weren't afraid for me?" he asked, unable to hide his slight indignation.

"I knew I'd find a way to catch you."

"And the psychological trauma?" Logan was quite serious, but it was hard to tell if Ororo was taking him seriously.

She pulled out of his embrace and kissed him gently on the lips. "I" – she kissed him again – "promise" – and again – "never" – she moved to his cheek – "to do" – his ear – "anything" – his neck – "like that" – his jaw – "ever" – his lips – "again."

After about the third kiss, his terror had receded completely, only to be replaced with a longing so potent that it was painful. She tried to pull away but Logan held her, catching her lips again and refusing to letting go. She relaxed in his arms immediately, and Logan took that as a sign to continue. He pressed her against the wall of the jet eagerly and she wrapped her legs around his waist, groaning with equal enthusiasm.

Of the _very _few things that could make Logan forget that he was in a jet - or that he'd just fallen out of one - it didn't much surprise him that Ororo topped that list. She tugged at his zipper at a maddeningly slow pace, laughing against his lips as he kissed her harder. He reached for her zipper as well, but barely made it past her throat before her entire body became rigid and she pushed him off.

"Are you kidding," he asked flatly. She'd _never_ pulled away from him before.

"Later," she muttered raggedly against his lips, the lust and disappointment in her eyes mirroring his own as she pulled out her communicator. "Storm," she answered sharply. "What do you want?"

"Cyclops," he announced shortly. "I knocked out the enemy and he disappeared. I'm guessing that means that he was one of the multiples that the original is able to create?"

"Someone else has the original," Logan muttered to himself, blessing and cursing the interruption.

Ororo nodded, addressing Scott. "I'll check with the others and see who has the original. We have to swing around and pick up the kids anyway."

"It'd be a better idea to give the bomb to the police before doing anything else," Scott advised. "Disabled or not, explosives are still explosives." Ororo pinched the bridge of her nose as she stared down at her communicator. "You didn't disable it?" Scott asked. Ororo kept silent, biting her bottom lip as though considering how she wanted to answer. At last, Scott gave a tired sigh. "You tried the pressure shield, didn't you?"

"When else would I have had the opportunity?"

"Maybe in a controlled environment?" Scott snapped. "Where death wasn't a very real possibility?"

Logan snatched the communicator away from Ororo. She didn't exactly look as though she were ready to give a scathing remark, but sometimes she was the most dangerous when she was perfectly calm. "She's been lectured enough about that," Logan told him, not unkindly. "We'll see who has the original." Logan cut the connection, knowing that Scott already had.

"I don't know who he thinks he is…"

"I know, he _cares_," Logan said sarcastically. "How dare he." He dialed Peter's combination on the communicator and waited for the teen to pick up. After a short exchange of words, he dialed Kitty's, then Bobby's, then Marie's. They all had the same story as Scott; they'd managed to knock him out or catch him, only to have him disappear. That left either Kurt, or the location that Logan hadn't gone to, and Kurt wasn't answering his communicator.

"We may have a winner," he commented, handing the device back to Ororo. "But where is he?"

Pocketing the communicator, Ororo moved to the front of the jet and sat in the pilot's seat. "That 'X' insignia on your belt isn't just for show," she called over her shoulder. "It has a tracking device in it, just in case we happen to get separated and we're in a situation where using the communicators is less than ideal. I'll just pull up a grid and we'll be able to pinpoint his exact location."

Logan nodded, not moving from his current spot. He'd somehow found the strength to stand – possibly from his outrage at the danger Ororo had put herself in – but now he was regretting that decision. He wanted nothing more than to sit (or lay) down, but he was afraid that movement of any kind would cause him to collapse in a heap on the floor. Admittedly, his legs were weak from more than just the altitude - Ororo usually had that effect on him - but that didn't change the fact that when they made it to solid ground, he was going to kiss it. Or perhaps kneel and pray for a few minutes…

The jet rocked gently as Ororo began descending and Logan yelped in surprise, grabbing for the nearest chair and nearly breaking it in half with his grip. Ororo's hand fell on his shoulder and squeezed soothingly, but the effect it had on Logan was the opposite of soothing. The jet was still moving, and Ororo wasn't in the pilot's seat.

Seized by fear again, Logan looked at the empty pilot's chair for confirmation and his heart nearly stopped. "What are you _doing_?!" he snapped, trying not to become absolutely hysterical. "Fly the jet!"

"But the computer – "

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Ororo, I'm begging you," he said as levelly as he could,_ "fly the goddamn jet!"_

Ororo huffed and returned to the control yoke, breathing erratically. When Logan's momentary fit had subsided, he realized that she was trying not to laugh. Logan scowled at the back of her head and resisted the urge to tell her that he hadn't laughed when she'd been locked in the chest inside Cerebro.

But, then again, it occurred to him that she might also be nervous. He couldn't remember ever acting like this in front of her, and over the past few months he'd learned a few of her mannerisms; such as pinching the bridge of her nose when she was thinking hard or annoyed with something, bouncing her knee when she was impatient, or sometimes giggling when she was nervous.

His scowl slowly slipped away as he also realized that she must be feeling very guilty for causing him so much trauma. She didn't like showing that she was guilty, but he knew her well enough to know that she was. With some effort, Logan managed to make his tone slightly playful as he said, "How do you intend to make this up to me?"

She turned to look at him over her shoulder and he saw, as clear as day, the sympathy and guilt in her eyes. He also saw gratitude, though he wasn't sure what to make of that. Had she expected him to be angrier than he was? Was she still hung up on the fact that he'd been more afraid for her than for himself?

"I will make it up to you," she promised softly. "Again and again and again."

"And again, after that," Logan added, lust unexpectedly overcoming his fear once more. Her behavior in the Cerebro chamber had confused him for months, but now Logan was starting to understand how she'd gone from frightened to frisky the second he'd let her out of the chest. He wanted to grab her and continue where they'd left off. He wanted to forget about this whole damn mission for a _very_ long time, but he pushed those thoughts aside for the moment. They'd probably get interrupted again anyway...

He instead focused on inching his way up to the front of the jet until he finally dropped into the co-pilot's seat and fastened the belts as tight as possible. His nerves were still more than a little frayed, and he was still experiencing the sensation of falling, though he wasn't sure why. _Must be like when you swim all day and still feel like you're swimming when you go to bed,_ a voice supplied.

_That's what you get for wanting 'a little more excitement', dumbass,_ said another.

Deciding to focus on anything but the view outside, Logan's gaze settled on the digital map that Ororo was studying out of the corner of her eye. If he'd been paying attention correctly during the briefing, it seemed that Kurt was at site two, which was where Logan would've been, if not for the bomb. Peter, Bobby, and Marie were right where Logan and Ororo had left them, and Scott and Kitty were together at site six.

No one was at site five, which either meant that Kurt had finished there and moved on to site two, or that Scott had dropped him off in the wrong place. Logan doubted that Scott would do such a thing, and logic told him that Kurt hadn't answered his communicator because he was fighting the original. _Or he forgot it. Again._

"Drop me off where Kurt is," Logan said. "You can go pick up the others and I'm sure we'll be done by the time you come back. I have a hunch that Kurt has the original."

"Are you sure you're okay to fight," she asked seriously. "You might still be in shock…"

"I'm fine." Ororo gave him a pointed look and Logan returned it. "I'll _be_ fine," he amended. "What I need is solid ground beneath my feet, so much that I might take a cab home."

Ororo shook her head and laid a hand on his arm. "I am sorry."

"You don't need to keep saying it," he said, giving her a slow and dirty smile. "You said you'd make it up to me. And I _fully_ intend to collect that debt."


	60. Departing

*Sigh* So sad, but it has to be done…

* * *

Logan tore his gaze from Ororo's tempting form and focused on the site below them, which was more than a little disconcerting.

Out in the street, Kurt was standing in the middle of a circle of at least a dozen Multiple Man copies as they attacked him. Looking closer, Logan saw that Kurt wasn't just standing, but rather he was moving so fast that he appeared to hardly be moving at all. He threw a sidelong gaze at Ororo, who was watching with equal fascination. "You sure you still want to go help him?"

Logan raised an eyebrow as he looked down at Kurt again. "Does he even _need_ help?"

"I guess we'll find out. I'm coming too." Because of the human spectators and the sheer size of the jet, Ororo had to land on the roof of the bank. As she had the cloaking program activated, none of the humans spared a glance in their direction, and they hardly seemed to notice the suspicious gust of wind or jet shaped shadow that passed over them. _Must be nice to be so blissfully unaware..._

But they weren't exactly unaware - rather their attention was directed elsewhere. Admittedly, Logan might not've noticed the jet passing overhead if he had a front row seat to such a scuffle.

Ororo opened the hatch and Logan noticed that she kept one eye on him as they walked to the edge of the roof to get a better look at what was happening. He tried not to let that annoy him because he knew that, were their roles reversed, he'd keep _both_ eyes on her. And probably in a much more obnoxious fashion.

Logan turned his attention to the street and his sharp eyes caught sight of Kurt perfectly, despite their distance. The blue mutant appeared to be sweating lightly, but he wasn't at all out of breath, and was never caught off guard. Wearing an X-Men uniform that had been designed specifically for him, one could see just how tall and lean Kurt truly was. And Kitty had been right about his muscles becoming more defined in the past five months, though the fact that she was keeping an eye on such a thing was... interesting, to say the least.

At any rate, seeing Kurt like this, it was clear that all his years of acrobatics had served him well. He was able to move with precision, speed, and grace, and do it almost effortlessly.

Ororo slipped her hand into Logan's, reminding him that they were still on the roof of the bank. He tore his gaze from the scene on the street, ready to find a door that would lead them downstairs. But he noted the serious set of her face as well as the frosty white of her eyes. He felt the wind pick up around them and his eyes widened. If she was thinking what he thought she was thinking...

Ororo took a step closer to him, wrapping one of her arms around his waist. Sensing what she was about to do and not liking it one bit, he tried to pull away. But she held him in place. _Damn her strength,_ he cursed silently, trying to hold his rising unease under the surface.

"Trust me, James," she breathed. "I know how to do this now."

That was all she had to say. A shiver ran down his spine as she said his name, and she seemed to take that as a sign to continue. He felt a stronger gust, as well as strategically placed bursts of wind beneath them as his feet left the ground. His entire body tensed and he felt like he was in the air for a small lifetime, but he swallowed his panic by keeping his eyes locked on Ororo's. And, realistically, Logan knew that it was only a few seconds later that his feet touched the street, as though he'd only jumped about a foot into the air.

The white in her eyes faded into an ocean blue and Logan gave her a tight, uncomfortable smile. It hadn't been so bad since he'd expected it, but it wasn't something that he really wanted to do a second time. _Or ever again. _But, if he ever wanted to get over his intense fear of heights, small, controlled flights in her arms were probably the best way.

But he wasn't eager to do it again in the next twenty-four hours, so he tucked the thought away for the moment.

She let him go and they moved into the sizable crowd, pushing through people to get to Kurt. But Kurt didn't seem to need any help at all, and even seemed to be unaware that Logan and Ororo were there to lend a hand. He'd kick one copy down, and another would rise in its place, but he never got overly confident or flustered.

Logan eyed each of Kurt's attackers carefully and caught sight of one in particular that seemed to be more agitated than the others. He was sweating more, wasn't smiling as much, and seemed to move just a little bit slower. Yet his copies were every bit as solid as he was, taking a hit and trying to give one in return. That had to be the original, and while Kurt was certainly wearing him down, it was only a matter of time before Kurt himself got tired. It was easy to see that Kurt had the advantage, but it was also evident that Multiple Man still had plenty of fight left in him.

It was odd to watch a fight like this from the outside, and Logan found himself inching closer, wanting to join in, and not just for the sake of helping Kurt. But as that thought crossed his mind he stopped himself, appalled at the thought that he _needed_ a fight. And after he'd just wished for more excitement, too! 'More excitement' had come in the form of falling out of the jet. Lord only knew what the hell would happen if he wished for a good fight.

The original Multiple Man made a dive for Kurt's long tail and Logan it as an opportunity for Kurt to put an end to this. "Left calf!" he shouted.

As if it had a life and mind of its own, Kurt's tail moved towards his left calf and wrapped itself around Multiple Man's wrist, hoisting him into the air. Without looking, Kurt's elbow made contact with the mutant's jaw and he let him fall to the ground, probably expecting him to disappear like all the others. Multiple Man was out the second his head made contact with the pavement. Immediately his many copies stilled and then vanished, seemingly moving in the direction of the real thing.

Everything suddenly became very quiet and still and, even after many seconds, Kurt's entire body was still rigid, as though he expected a sneak attack. Logan knew that look of caution very well, and found that he had a new respect for Kurt. He knew that Kurt didn't like fighting, not like this. Kurt enjoyed sparring and acrobatics, playing around and exercises of that nature, but he didn't like actually fighting.

But he was good at it. And yet, he was the type that would rather find a way to end conflicts peacefully. He rarely took offense to insults that were directed at him, nor had he ever responded in kind when he did take offense. He never hit the students too hard during sparring sessions, and didn't get angry when he knew that they were trying to hit him hard on purpose. In Logan's opinion, people like that were the ones that ought to be good at things like fighting. Not people like Victor or Magneto. Unfortunately, the world didn't work like that.

The special police force – _standing back while Kurt did all the work, I'm sure_ – materialized out of the crowd, suddenly getting the courage to get the situation under their control. A few came forward and handcuffed Multiple Man, dragging the unconscious mutant to his feet and carrying him to one of the squad cars to take him away.

Logan turned back to Kurt, who was watching the scene unfold with a haunted expression. It was a look that clearly spoke of thinking that he'd done the unforgivable, though Logan couldn't imagine why Kurt would see knocking someone out as such. While Ororo went to inform the police that Multiple Man needed to be taken directly to the high security mutant prison, Logan made his way over to Kurt, who didn't seem to notice the presence of the shorter man.

Standing upright, Kurt was damn near as tall as Peter, yet every bit as slim as Ororo. But Kurt didn't need bulging muscles like Peter or Logan, because he knew just how to deliver a softer hit that was every bit as damaging as a full powered punch from Peter or even a slice from Logan.

"That was some fight," Logan said as casually as possible. "How did you get here so fast from site two?" He was sure he already knew the answer, but he wasn't sure how else he was supposed to start the conversation.

"I teleported," Kurt replied with disinterest. "So long as I could see the end of the street, I could jump from one block to another, no matter the distance. A few turns here and there and I arrived here in about a minute and a half." Logan whistled appreciatively. Personally, he didn't like 'jumping,' but it was certainly a handy skill. "I can't stay," Kurt said suddenly, turning to Logan.

"Eh?" was the only response Logan could grasp at.

"Please, if you could, tell Ororo and professor Xavier that I do not think I will be coming back."

Logan stiffened at that. Xavier would certainly understand, but Logan remembered Ororo's insecurities about people leaving her and thinking that it was somehow her doing. Why the hell did he have to be the one to tell her that there was yet another name to add to that list?

"I am a peaceful man, Logan," he said quietly. "All my life I've been an acrobat, a performer. I didn't always like the negative attention that I received, but I never hurt anyone in all the years that I was a performer. I join the X-Men and in half a year I manage to nearly assassinate the president and injure various others on these missions that we go on."

"The president wasn't our fault," Logan argued. "Nor was it yours. Stryker did that."

"You've all spoken of a war that is coming between the mutants and the humans. What happened today was hardly a battle, and I'm hardly soldier."

Logan couldn't argue with that, and really didn't want to. He wasn't going to ask Kurt to fight when he didn't want to, and he couldn't force him to stay. He sighed heavily and looked at Ororo out of the corner of his eye. Completely unaware of what her new best friend was planning, she and Scott were talking with the police, nodding every now and then when a question was asked. "Why can't you tell her that yourself?" Logan asked finally.

Kurt turned in the direction of Ororo with a sad expression. "I couldn't bear to see the pain in her eyes."

Logan's lip twitched in annoyance. "Oh, but I can?"

"You know how to comfort her," he replied, as though it were truly as simple as that. "It is clear that I don't. Why else did she choose to let herself be vulnerable in front of you so long ago in the Dark Cerebro chamber?"

Logan scoffed, but then reconsidered. It had hardly seemed to be a decision she'd made, but now Logan wasn't sure. Obviously she hadn't wanted to, but maybe, subconsciously, she _had_ chosen him.

"And besides, I'm not leaving her forever. Only for now." A slow smile made itself visible on the blue mutants face as he continued to watch Ororo. "I will see her again some day. Of that I am sure."

Logan shifted uneasily. Was it, perhaps, possible that Kurt _did_ harbor some feelings for Ororo? It was apparent that he wasn't going to act on them, but that didn't necessarily mean that they weren't there.

Kurt seemed to notice his stiff silence and gave Logan an mischievous smirk. "I am only a friend, I assure you. It has been my experience that when you truly love someone, there are times that you absolutely hate them as well. She has never been angry with me, but she's _always_ angry with you."

"Gee, thanks," he returned sourly.

"Yet, somehow, you managed to survive her wrath. No matter how much she throws at you, you don't give up on her. You don't let her push you away, even when you know that it's what she wants. Instead, you give her what you know she needs. What more could she want or need from a man that is willing to do such things for her?"

Logan raised an eyebrow at Kurt, suddenly curious. "Is that what _you_ think, or did she tell you that that's how she feels?"

Kurt glanced at Logan out of the corner of his eyes. "You know, I can't remember." A wink and a devilish smirk later, he vanished.

Logan huffed in only mild annoyance as he turned away. "I guess I should've expected that..."

As he made his way to the jet, he saw that Kitty was staring at him pointedly, her arms crossed and her fingers impatiently strumming on her bicep. "Everyone else on the jet?" he asked.

"Waiting on you," she returned, a tad shortly.

"Well here I am. What's with the evil eye?"

She rolled her eyes and huffed dramatically. "Are you serious?"

"As the plague," he said flatly.

She leaned heavily on one hip and put her hands on her hips. "I got in trouble for disobeying an order, but no one is even going to lecture you!"

"Lecture? By who? For what?"

She grabbed his zipper – which still happened to be halfway down his chest - and yanked it roughly up to his throat. "Getting distracted."

His mind briefly returned to his episode with Ororo on the jet and thanked the Lord above that he wasn't the type to blush. Instead, he eyed Kitty for a long minute, and she matched his gaze without fear. Several remarks came to mind, as well as an additional punishment or two, but he silenced them all. She had a point. Shrugging, he opened the door of the bank and motioned for her to go first. "You got to come on the mission, didn't you?"

She pointedly walked through the wall, ignoring the door that he'd offered her. Entering the bank himself, he let Kitty lead the way to the staircase that would take them to the roof, sure that he heard her muttering something along the lines of, "Touché," and, "The war will yet be mine."


	61. View

I thought I'd give you all the gift of an early update. Partly because I love all of my loyal readers. Mostly because I didn't do anything else today besides make dinner, feed the dogs, and watch American Idol. Plus, I'm in a SUPER good mood because I'm now the owner of four Owl City concert tickets! Awesome seats at a damn good price! Go me!

Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

Though Logan had sort of expected it, it didn't make it any easier to watch Ororo shut down and hide her emotions behind a smooth blank mask when he'd told her that they were leaving without Kurt. But he'd expected it, because the children were on the jet and because doing so was familiar and comfortable for her. So he'd let her.

He'd thought that, perhaps, when they got off the jet and made their way into their rooms then they could talk about it.

Wrong.

As soon as she'd shut the jet down, she'd drifted into the female changing room without so much as a glance in Logan's direction. After patiently waiting for ten minutes, Kitty and Marie had come out, chatting about taking Lee to a Chevelle concert that night for her birthday. They'd informed him that Ororo was long gone, and Logan could only assume that she'd locked herself in her room and probably didn't want to be disturbed.

So there he was, trudging up the stairs to his room, only to find the birthday girl herself sitting in front of his door, crying silently and clutching something close to her chest. He approached her slowly, wondering if she wanted to be alone. _No,_ he thought. _Why would she be sitting in front of my door if she wanted to be alone?_

"Hey," he said softly, prompting her to look up. "Aren't Kitty and Marie supposed to be taking you to some concert?"

"Are they?" she squeaked. Logan mentally kicked himself. _Dammit! Must've been a surprise. _But that didn't seem to matter much, considering the look that she was giving him. Her brown eyes, filled to the brim with tears, seemed impossibly large as she stared up at him. Logan's heart clenched. "B-But I d-don't know if I w-want to go to a c-c-concert. L-Look what he gave me."

She held up what she'd been holding onto so tightly, letting Logan inspect it. There didn't seem to be anything extraordinary about it; a tall bottle of pink perfume with a blossoming flower and the words '_Pure Seduction_' written beneath it.

"N-No one else knows how much I l-love this p-perfume," she sniffled. "I've never t-told anyone what it's c-called or where to g-get it. Except… _him._"

Logan frowned, but his eyes widened in recognition. Gently taking the bottle, he sniffed at it. Sure enough, under the scent of the perfume and Lee's gunpowder scent was gasoline; unmistakably, it had come from John.

Logan's first thought was to wonder if he had stolen it, but he dismissed it quickly. What John did wasn't really his concern anymore. Logan wondered why such a thing would make her upset until it dawned on him that perhaps she was upset because he'd been near enough to leave her something. It wasn't much of a secret that the two had been infatuated with each other, and it seemed that neither was willing to let go of those feelings. And wouldn't it be so much easier for Lee to get over him if she knew that he didn't give a damn?

But, apparently, he did give a damn.

Giving her back the perfume bottle, Logan dropped into a crouch and wiped a stray tear away, making her look at him. "He'll figure it out," he told her. "He isn't like them. He'll realize that he made the wrong choice and he'll come back."

Lee gave him a watery smile. "He's been back," she mumbled. "He's c-changed; I saw it in his eyes. He'll never be back."

"He obviously cares," he said, gesturing to the bottle. "He might come back for you." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop, and Logan kicked himself again. He didn't want to give her false hope and feel responsible for it if John did happen to break her heart. But a small part of him was almost certain that John would rather die than break Lee's heart.

She gave Logan a humorless chuckle. "He won't be back," she said firmly. "He told me that he'd always love me, that nothing could ever change that. And I told him that I never wanted to look at him ever again."

Logan frowned, unable to _not_ notice the similarities between Lee's relationship with John and his own relationship with Ororo. But he pushed that thought away. This was about Lee. "I'm sure he knows that you didn't mean it."

Lee's expression changed instantly; her eyes grew dark, a black rage replacing sadness and longing. A nasty scowl formed on her face and the air around them charged until the hairs on Logan's arms were standing straight up. "But I _did_ mean it," she hissed. "I still do mean it. From the bottom of my soul, _I HATE him! _I want him to_ fucking DIE!_"

The bottle in her hands exploded. The liquid flew in every direction, and so did the glass. A few pieces embedded themselves in the wall and one piece sliced the back of Logan's hand open. But Lee seemed unharmed, so he didn't panic. Her expression changed again, to utter hopelessness and defeat. She covered her face with her hands and cried harder, her entire body shaking with her sobs. "Why am I in love with him?" she wailed.

Logan pulled her onto his lap and rubbed her back gently as she cried. But he held back from saying anything. What could he possibly say that could make her feel even a little better? What did she want to hear?

"_You don't let her push you away, even when you know that it's what she wants. Instead, you give her what you know she needs."_

Logan nodded to himself. Regardless of whether or not she wanted to hear it, she needed to. And Logan knew, without a doubt, that he was speaking the truth. "If he honestly loves you that much, he'll be back," he said softly into her hair. "He'll give you what you need, despite what you may think you want."

She gave him another watery smile and threw her arms around him. The smell of the powerful perfume made his nose turn up, but he was happy to return the hug. "Why couldn't I be lucky like Ororo and get everything?" she mumbled into his chest.

He pulled her away and smirked down at her. "You _will_ get everything," he assured her. "And I mean _everything._ You just don't have it right this minute. Your generation is so damn impatient."

After a soft laugh and another hug, Lee wiped away her tears and looked as good as new, minus the slight puffiness of her eyes. "You're going to be a great father when you and Storm finally get around to making babies."

Logan blinked hard before getting to his feet and helping Lee up. "Thanks. Now get lost. You have an obnoxiously loud concert to get to and I'm sure you don't want to go with those soaked clothes."

She looked down at the perfume stains left behind on her clothing and smiled wistfully. "Thanks again," she said softly as she made her way down the hall.

Sure that she'd be back again if she needed anything, Logan slipped into his room and closed the door firmly behind him, emotionally spent for the day. He wanted a hot shower and possibly a nap before dinner. And after dinner, he was going to talk to Ororo, whether she wanted to or not.

Peeling his clothes off and carelessly letting them fall to the floor, he walked into his bathroom and turned the shower on, adjusting the water to just short of scalding before climbing in. As he stood under the jets of water, he wondered if he ought to consider his quick therapy session with Lee as a warm up. Ororo wouldn't be nearly as open with her information, would she? In the past, he could say that the answer to that question was a definite no. But now, he wasn't quite sure. Knowing that, it should've made the task less daunting. And yet, after how close they'd grown the past five months, he knew that it would probably hurt more if she shut herself down completely to him.

When the temperature of the water began to steadily drop, Logan turned off the shower and got out, grabbing a towel and throwing it around his waist before stepping into the cold air of his room.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Ororo sitting on his window sill, staring out the window into the fading light. She turned in his direction briefly before turning away again, presumably to give him privacy. He tried not to sigh in disappointment, as he turned to gather some clothes. He didn't _want_ privacy, but Ororo clearly had more mellow topics on her mind. "Did he say that it was too violent for him?" she asked.

"Mostly," Logan replied, dressing slowly in case she changed her mind.

Instead she sighed heavily, still staring out the window. "I figured as much. Part of me knew that eventually he wouldn't want to do this anymore. But I'd always thought that he'd want to at least stay and be a teacher. He was so good at it and I thought he liked it."

"I'm sure he does. He just has his own issues to sort out, I think. He said he'd be back someday. He'll realize that there's more to what we do than just fighting."

"We?" She suddenly sounded less somber. "My, my, Logan, you really have become one of us, haven't you?"

Logan shrugged. "It keeps me honest."

She hummed thoughtfully, shifting her weight. Logan froze, waiting, but she didn't turn around. After a moment he huffed in annoyance as he pulled on his boxers. _Dammit._

"By the way, on her way out, Lee told me to tell you thanks again."

Logan hummed thoughtfully as he pulled on a plain white shirt. "Did she seem okay?"

"Better. I didn't ask because I could see that she'd been crying and I figured that it had something to do with John."

"He sent her a bottle of her favorite perfume, I guess."

Ororo nodded in understanding. "Yeah, that would upset her. Lee feels about perfumes the way Kitty feels about purses."

Well _that_ put it into perspective. Kitty spent insane amounts of money on purses, and she carried a different one with her every day. A rumor had gone around the school that she owned over a hundred purses, but Logan had thought that was merely an exaggeration. But after nearly three months of noticing that she hadn't used the same purse twice, be began to wonder...

The fact that Lee felt the same way about perfumes solved the mystery of the multitudes of smells that assaulted his nose whenever he walked past their room. And he could better understand why being given her favorite kind by John would be so upsetting.

"She said that John's been back once or twice to see her," Logan commented.

"I don't doubt it," Ororo said flatly. "He likes to breaking rules just for the sake of doing it."

"Should we be worried about security if a kid can break into the mansion?"

"I've seen them a few times; he only goes into the courtyard out back. He usually takes her out. He just wants to see her. And besides that, John is smart for his age. Smarter than I was, and more skilled. If he wanted to, he'd find a way around updated security." Logan shrugged as he pulled his pajama bottoms on. It was just a thought.

She sighed heavily and finally turned around. _Now that I'm fully dressed,_ he silently seethed. But he couldn't be completely indignant, because she was no longer wearing that damning mask. While she looked a little tired, she looked halfway content. For that, Logan was thankful.

"Well, I don't know about you," she said briskly, "but I've had enough dreariness to last me for a few days. Lee is going to the concert with her friends, Kurt is off to find himself and John is quite capable of taking care of himself. I'm done worrying for the day." She rubbed her hands together as she crossed the room in a few strides, standing in front of him. "Not that I didn't enjoy the show" – she hooked her finger on the inside of his waistband and tugged playfully – "but I honestly don't know why you bothered."

That completely derailed his train of thought. "Come again?"

Ororo smirked. "Go look at the window." He did as he was told and looked out into the night, not seeing anything. He turned back to her, an eyebrow raised in question. "I said look _at_ the window," she clarified. "Not out."

Logan took a step back and let his vision focus on the first thing that they caught sight of, which happened to be Ororo. Because it was so dark outside, the light from his room shined on a window in a way that gave it a mirror effect.

Ororo had her arms crossed triumphantly and Logan felt himself grinning like a fool. She'd seen _everything._ "I think I like your room," she said thoughtfully, inspecting her nails with little interest. "The view is _excellent._"

Feeling cocky, Logan turned about and leaned against the window, smirking at her. "You enjoyed the show, yet you don't know why I bothered? Bothered to what?"

"Get dressed," she answered simply. Ororo moved towards his bathroom with exaggerated slowness and a coy smirk. Stopping at the threshold, she turned back to him. "I said that I was sorry," she said innocently, "but I never got to prove it. And besides, I haven't taken my shower yet." She pulled her shirt off and tossed it at him. It landed over his eyes and when he pulled it off, she was gone and the water was already running. "Coming, James?"

His clothes were off in record time as he followed her in, still grinning like a fool. "Right behind you, darlin'."

* * *

Perfume is from Victoria's Secret, called 'Pure Seduction.' (If 'awesome' could be bottled, THIS is what it would smell like.) In case anyone cares… You probably don't…


	62. Trip

With Kurt gone, Logan's work load became a little heavier in the next three months. But it wasn't anything that he couldn't handle. In fact, though Kurt's help had been welcomed and appreciated, Logan found that it hadn't been entirely necessary. He had no trouble keeping up with all of his students. More often than not, they had trouble keeping up with him, but Logan knew when to slow things down and when to pick up the pace. He knew who to push past their limits and who to back off from, and his students were – for the most part – fast learners.

And it pleased him that, although she clearly missed her friend, Ororo hadn't spiraled into another bout of depression, nor did she seem to be more stressed than usual. That meant that she'd mostly been leaning on Logan for support instead of bottling up her emotions. His heart swelled at that knowledge, though it still slightly peeved him that she refused to say that she loved him. Logan had tried – more than once – to trick her into saying it, but she was too clever for such a slip up. Then again, so was he, because she'd tried to trick him a time or two as well.

In those three months, nothing spectacular or really out of the ordinary happened in the lives of the X-Men. The adults continued to teach, the children continued to learn, Scott continued building his training program and Xavier continued using Cerebro to scan for any sign of activity from Magneto. Logan had once tried to be helpful, suggesting that he try scanning for Mystique or Pyro instead, but the old man was already a step ahead of him.

"Every mutant has the ability to use their powers to their advantage to block telepaths from reading their thoughts," he'd explained. "Some mutants aren't very good at it, while others are experts. The helmet that Magneto wears gives off a magnetic pulse that I have trouble breaking through or finding a way around. Storm uses electric currents in the same manner to shield her thoughts. Kitty is able to make her thoughts intangible, so to speak; I know that they're there, but I can't 'see' them to read them.

"While I wouldn't necessarily say that you possess super speed, you are able to move quite a bit faster than any human and even many other mutants. Also, you've been alive for over a hundred years, despite the fact that you can only recall about sixteen of those years. I believe it is for that reason that your thoughts are quite a bit faster than the thoughts or others. Sometimes it's difficult to read what you're thinking because you think _too fast_. It only takes a few seconds for you to thoroughly think a situation through. It would take others minutes to do the same, even if their thoughts were exactly the same as yours. Does that make sense?"

Logan nodded slowly. He'd never really given much thought as to the _speed_ of his thoughts. It had always seemed perfectly normal to him, but then, why wouldn't it? It's not like he could dip into other people's minds and compare the speed of their thoughts to his own.

"Mystique already knew how to use her powers to that advantage. She's a metamorph, and she knows how to change her the appearance of her thoughts, so to speak. She may truly be thinking about books, for instance, but to me it would appear that she's thinking about television. And Magneto has taught Pyro to do the same with his powers. John is pyrokinetic, but not many know that he's also thermokinetic as well. He can manipulate the heat intensity of his surrounding area without fire, as well as the heat of his own body without it hurting him. His average body temperature is about one hundred and seven degrees, and the hottest we've measured his body temperature at was three hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit."

Logan whistled appreciatively. That certainly explained why he'd gotten second degree burns just from touching the back of John's neck.

"He's able to increase the heat intensity of his mind, which heats mine in turn. I'm forced to pull back or, quite literally, risk frying my brain."

Logan shrugged. Part of him had known that Xavier had already tried that, but he thought he'd mention it. And besides, though he hadn't exactly expected a lecture, he couldn't deny that learning things like this were interesting.

But the fact remained that they didn't have any lead whatsoever on Magneto. And yet, ever the optimist, Xavier didn't give up hope that they'd find Magneto before it was too late. His hope seemed to pay off in the end, because it seemed that Magneto had finally slipped up, which was why the X-Men were all gathered in Xavier's office as he told them what he knew:

In exactly one week, Magneto was going to be in attendance at a black tie event down in Atlanta, Georgia; a fund-raising gala to raise awareness about mutant prejudice at the Ritz-Carlton. Xavier had admitted that he didn't know exactly what it was that Magneto was planning, but knowing where he was going to be was certainly a good start. Someone had to go to spy on him while he was at the gala and make sure that he didn't cause trouble. A bonus would be finding out what he was up to in the first place and why it required going all the way down to Georgia.

"We can't leave the children alone again," Ororo insisted after Xavier had finished. "Not even for one night. I highly doubt that Magneto is planning on raiding the school on the scale that Stryker did, but it'd be better to be safe than sorry. And many parents were angry that we left nearly seventy students alone with only one adult in the mansion."

"Well we can't just let Magneto do whatever he wants down in Georgia, either," Kitty returned. "_Someone_ has to go."

"Someone _will_ go," Xavier assured them. "Because this could turn out to be a very serious matter, we'll need experience on our side. I'm sending Logan and Ororo."

That startled Logan. When Xavier had spoken of experience, he'd figured that Scott was going. He was certainly silent enough to blend into the background, though it occurred to him that wearing those glasses would certainly make him stand out at a black tie event. Ororo was the perfect choice, but even Xavier would've been better off going in Logan's place. Not that he _minded_ a week long trip to Georgia with the tempting weather witch, but Logan certainly didn't think of himself as a gala event kind of guy. How the hell did Xavier expect him to mix in and mingle with the rich and powerful?

"I've already arranged a round trip commercial flight for discretion, car rentals, hotel rooms, and tickets to the charity event." Logan raised an eyebrow at that. Rooms? Plural? Hell, everyone in the mansion knew that the only reason Logan and Ororo didn't share a room now was because they couldn't decide which of their rooms had the better view. But Logan kept silent.

"I'll keep an eye on Magneto from Cerebro let you know where he's going to be and such," Xavier continued. "The two of you will do as much spying on Magneto as you can, and you'll go to the event disguised as charity givers to keep an eye on him as well. Whatever he has planned, it's happening on that night. Your plane leaves from JFK International in about three hours. Pack lightly, and don't worry about formal wear because I've scheduled you both for fittings early tomorrow morning. And Logan, I think you'd be surprised at how well you'd blend in if you'd just shave…"

Logan turned his nose up and opened his mouth to reply, but Ororo reached over and gently pushed his jaw up before he could speak. "It'll probably grow back in three days," she muttered. "Shave your beard and I'll change my hairstyle completely."

Logan raised an eyebrow in challenge. "But you _want_ to do that."

She rolled her eyes. "We'll talk about it on the plane."

"So what did you need us for, then?" Marie asked, frowning in confusion.

"Yes!" Xavier clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "You four are the oldest in the school, and you're also X-Men. Ororo and Logan may be gone for a week or two, but the other students still need to be taught. For that reason, you four are going to pair up and take over their classes while they're gone."

"Dibs on Phy Ed and Combat," Kitty nearly shouted.

"Ditto," Bobby said.

The tall Russian simply shook his head. "No."

Bobby glared up at Peter. "No? Just like that?"

"I am obviously the best qualified to teach the physical education. Plus, English is not my first language and you always got better grades than I did."

"B's are good grades," Bobby insisted.

"Not as good as A's," Peter replied with a shrug.

Bobby seethed for a minute before crossing his arms and twisting his mouth into a scowl. Logan frowned at him. "At least you get to work with Rogue," he said casually, though the implication was unmistakable. It hadn't escaped his notice that lately he and Kitty had become good friends. There was nothing wrong with friends, but he wasn't entirely sure that a friend was all Bobby saw Kitty as, and he'd be damned if he let Marie get hurt by him.

Bobby's countenance changed instantly and he flashed Marie a quick smile. It seemed that he hadn't picked up on Logan's subtle threat, and he was inclined to think that perhaps Bobby was just a little thick headed. The boy wasn't _that_ good of an actor, so Logan was willing to let it drop for the moment.

Xavier nodded. "Very well, then. Marie, Bobby, you will take over Science and History, and Kitty and Peter will take over Phy Ed and Combat. Logan, Ororo, I'd get going if I were you."

"Already gone, Charley," Logan replied as he followed Ororo out the door. Despite the fact that they were off to face Magneto, Logan couldn't help but be a little excited. He was going to spend at least a week in Georgia with Ororo. Yes, they'd be working, but they'd obviously have a little free time too. He smirked, already planning out interesting ways to pass the time.


	63. Preparation

Logan stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, turning his head this way and that and carefully examining his new look. He and Ororo had roughly four hours before they were supposed to be at the Ritz-Carlton, and Logan couldn't decide if he looked presentable or not.

He'd never been particularly vain, but he had to admit that he didn't look half bad without the whiskers. He tried telling himself that what little vanity he had was a side effect of touching Marie, but some part of him knew that that just wasn't true. Did that mean that he truly _was_ vain. Or did it perhaps mean that, after essentially looking the same for over a decade and a half, he wasn't opposed to a change in his appearance?

Logan ran a hand across his cheek for the umpteenth time, still startled that his skin was nearly as smooth as Ororo's. Nearly. He'd shaved his beard as close as possible and had only nicked himself once. He found that pretty damn impressive, since he'd had to use his claw to shave so close. He hadn't cut his hair – he wasn't quite _that_ daring – but upon getting out of the shower, he'd tried parting it, slicking it back, and doing just about _anything_ that would make it appear a little more kept. After five or six attempts, he raked his fingers through his hair one final time and called it quits. Perhaps Ororo could do it for him? Women always seemed to know how to do that sort of thing.

But she was off getting her own hair done at the moment. Logan expected her back sometime soon, however, as she'd already been gone for six hours now...

He frowned at that. It didn't take six hours to get your hair done, did it? Six hours was a quarter of a day. Their fitting hadn't lasted that long! He wondered if he ought to worry about where she was. Had she just gotten sidetracked, or was it more serious than that?

Magneto had arrived in Georgia the night before, accompanied by John. Ororo and Logan had followed them closely at the airport and watched everything they did meticulously, but they seemed just as normal as any of the other travelers. And Mystique could have, literally, been anyone. Logan couldn't detect her scent, but that didn't necessarily mean that she wasn't there. Lots of things could potentially mask her scent.

Nothing at all had happened up until last night; Logan and Ororo had had nothing but free time, as any and all attempts to figure out what Magneto wanted in Atlanta had turned up no results whatsoever. Xavier had insisted that it had been so quiet because Magneto had realized his massive slip up, but Logan refused to believe that it was that simple.

It was then that Logan had started to get the sinking feeling that maybe this was all a decoy of some kind. The fact that Magneto had slipped up at all - let alone about something as big as a trip to Georgia – was evidence enough, because he didn't make mistakes like that. In the pit of his stomach, Logan knew that it had to have been intentional. But he got the feeling that his warnings of this to Xavier had been taken with a grain of salt.

Logan found himself scowling at that. Magneto was much more devious than Xavier seemed to realize. Or perhaps he just didn't want to believe that his old friend would truly do something like that. That was a more understandable excuse, though Logan still wished that Xavier wouldn't take his advice for granted.

Yes, perhaps Logan was a bit biased since Magneto had tried to kill his Marie, but Xavier's friendship with Magneto made him much more biased. It couldn't be because Magneto had had a hand in saving him months ago, could it?

Logan shook his head. If that were the case, then Xavier _had_ to know that it hadn't been for his benefit. At least not solely. Even Ororo had seen through that when Magneto had explained things to them around the campfire.

Which brought him back to worrying about Ororo. It wouldn't surprise Logan to know that Magneto knew that they were already in Atlanta. Maybe he'd tried to capture her? That thought made his heart beat faster, and not in a good way.

Logan reached for his phone and found her number, about to press send when he heard the hotel room door open and close. "Back," she chimed, sounding a little out of breath. "Sorry it took so long, but the salon was a good forty-five minutes away, and traffic was terrible on the way back. You weren't worried, were you?"

Logan closed his phone and set it down with a silent sigh of relief. "I wasn't going to call the police, if that's what you want to hear."

He heard a quiet chuckle from the other side of the door. "I imagine that anyone foolish enough to try to intercept me would have it much better from the police than they would from you. That is, of course, assuming that they were successful in intercepting me. I wouldn't go gently or quietly."

"I don't doubt that," he muttered.

Logan heard her lean heavily against the bathroom door on the other side and sigh. "So how's it going in there, prom queen?"

"You're giving me a complex," he said grumpily as he eyed his reflection." I already feel like a girl." Whether dropping his voice a tone or two was intentional or not, he wasn't sure.

"And making your voice deeper, like you just did, makes you feel better?"

Sometimes he hated how well she was able to read him. "Maybe."

"I think I can safely assume that you're referring to your hair," she said, a smile in her voice, "Since I'm sure that you know how to wield a razor blade. I can fix that for you, if you want. A little hair gel and a comb and you'll be good to go in ten minutes."

Though the thought had crossed his mind… "I shouldn't have to rely on you to do my hair."

"I'm sure it crossed your mind."

Logan stared at the door in horror. _Damn_, she was good. Or perhaps he was a quick and easy study. Both were equally possible.

"Come on, Logan. The reason you don't know how to do your hair is because you never do it. You get out of the shower, rub it with a towel and let it dry however it will. No one will think you less of a man if I run a comb through it. Be happy that I won't have to cut it or use a flatiron."

Logan rolled his eyes in defeat as he opened the bathroom door. Upon catching sight of her, however, he froze. He forgot to breathe as he stared at her. Her hair was much shorter, hardly touching her shoulders anymore. She'd grown her bangs out months before, and now they nearly touched her lashes, making the blue of her eyes shine like sapphires. The rest of her hair was curled into soft ringlets, and Logan found himself aching to know just _how_ soft the curls were.

His entire body felt numb, his mind included, as he couldn't form a coherent thought other than her name. He didn't dare suck in a breath, lest her scent go straight to his head like a deadly toxin. He reached out to her, but his hand hardly made it halfway before she wrapped a hand around his wrist to stop him.

"We can't," she whispered, though the dilation of her eyes told him that she _really_ wanted to. "I can't fix it if it gets messed up."

"Then I won't touch your hair," he said, quite seriously.

She pressed her lips together in an effort to hide her smile, but failed miserably. "You know you don't have that much self control. And, honestly, neither do I." She went to her bags and grabbed a brush, a comb, a jar of hair gel and a small pair of scissors. "Now sit down," she commanded, putting the items on the bathroom counter. "We only have a few hours to get dressed and be there in time to scope out the area before Magneto arrives."

Logan eyed the scissors skeptically. "I thought you said you wouldn't have to cut it."

She shrugged as she began combing through it. "Just in case. There's a big difference between getting your hair cut and getting it trimmed."

"You're going to enjoy this, aren't you," Logan asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

She didn't look up from her work, but she smiled sweetly. "I think I am."

Logan frowned thoughtfully, something suddenly occurring to him: minus the quick stakeout they'd had last night, the week they'd had had been… _normal_. Yes, they'd gone to a special place to get fitted with formal clothing that would be both glamorous and non-constricting in the event of an emergency. And they'd followed Magneto and John across town from the airport to their hotel to see what they were up to. But other than those two occurrences, nothing spectacular had happened.

They'd spent _a lot_ of time in the hotel room in each others company, and the few times that Ororo had managed to drag him out of the hotel room had been to show him places that she'd been before; her favorite restaurant, a jazz bar, the history museum...

He _really_ hadn't been keen on the last one, but then he'd noticed the way her eyes lit up when she talked about something that she thought was particularly fascinating. Wide and bright as the sky, she'd scanned over the Civil War exhibit and pointed out certain things that she knew. This was the sword of General Patrick Cleburne; those were the firearms that the soldiers used, et cetera.

Logan had even had a few flashbacks, though it hadn't been anything terribly enlightening. He knew that he'd fought for the North and that Victor had fought just for the hell of it. It had been that way through most of the wars they'd fought together…

Ororo yanked on his hair. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to get his attention. "Will you hold still?"

Logan obeyed with a smirk, returning to his original topic of thought; was _this_ what it felt like to be… _domestic_?


	64. Arrival

As he'd expected, Ororo looked nothing short of gorgeous when she was finally dressed and ready to go. The gown she'd chosen was strapless, with what her fitter – a pixie sized Asian woman named Naomi – had called a sweetheart neckline. The color was charcoal black, with vertical pinstripes that were only a little lighter in color. While the top was fitted and smooth, the portion of the dress that was a few inches past her hips was ruched. A satin black bow sat just beneath her left breast, and pinned to it was a silver jewel. She wore very light makeup and only a small pair of sapphire earrings.

Ororo's fitting had taken nearly four hours, as both she and Naomi had thoroughly combed through each and every dress available to Ororo. Then they'd thoroughly combed through each and every pair of shoes, jewelry, and other accessories; trying this on, throwing that back, going back to find something that had been tossed away half an hour earlier…

Logan's fitting with a tall and gangly man named Austin had taken only twenty minutes, as he'd had far fewer choices. A black tux was obviously what he had to wear, but he was able to choose between either a tie or a bow tie, a cummerbund or a vest. After exactly five seconds of deliberation, he'd decided on the bow tie and vest.

Then he'd had to pick out cuff links (he'd chosen the simplest silver ones, which also happened to be the first pair that he'd been shown). Then Austin began asking what Logan considered to be absolutely pointless questions. What lapel style did he prefer? What shoes did he want? Did he favor a wing collar shirt, or would he rather wear a point collared shirt? Did he want a jacket with dress tails? Logan had given him a sharp look and nearly snapped that _he_ was supposed to know those things. Giving Logan a long look up and down, Austin had simply said, "Maybe I should take care of all that." About fifteen minutes of measuring later, Logan was a free man.

So there he stood, wearing a black tux with a bow tie and vest that matched Ororo's dress. He really didn't give a damn about the specifics. It was simple enough for him.

While they'd had plenty of choices as to what store to get fitted at, they'd gone to that shop specifically because the designer was able and willing to comply with the most ridiculous demands and still make nice clothing in a short amount of time. Xavier had called in with a long list of requests that Logan and Ororo had been made aware of when they'd picked up their clothing.

Though Logan's suit was tailored to perfection, it was extremely flexible, enabling him to move about however he wanted without worry that something would rip. It was also flame resistant, heat resistant, and could withstand friction if he needed to run at high speeds. Ororo's dress was the same, though hers had a few additions.

The heels in her shoes could collapse and become flat if she stomped her heel, so she'd be able to run at high speeds as well, and her dress also allowed free movement without ripping in the event that she really had to stretch her legs to run. And while the material of the gown looked soft and flowing, it was actually quite rigid, in case she needed to fly. That way, the material wouldn't fly up past her head and block her vision.

All in all, Logan felt that they'd covered all of the bases that they could. It still didn't feel like it would be nearly enough, but there was no help for that.

They'd opted to arrive at the Ritz-Carlton roughly two hours before they were supposed to be there. They needed to check the perimeter before the event started and guests started arriving, and they had a lot of ground to cover.

Though, they weren't sure of what they were looking for. _Anything, I guess, _Logan thought. Anything at all that seemed a little out of the ordinary. But at a place like this, he really wasn't sure of what was out of the ordinary and what was perfectly normal. But he could certainly wing it.

While Logan checked the perimeter, Ororo had decided that she'd check around the walls all the way to the top and even the roof. Logan had been opposed to that, as a beautiful woman wearing and evening gown and flying around the outside of an expensive hotel wasn't very inconspicuous. After a few moments of frowning, Ororo's eyes lit up.

"I have an idea," she said thoughtfully. "I've thought about doing it before, but I've never actually performed the experiment. Now, if I do this right, I should be able to create a thick mist around myself. I'll make it _just_ transparent enough that I can still see, but also dense enough that I can't _be_ seen. If I move the mist around me at just the right speed, the light waves from the sun should bend all the way around the mist and reconnect on the other side, seemingly unaltered. Quite similar to the way that water flows around a boulder, if it helps to think of it that way."

It certainly did help explain better, but he still was lost as to _what_ she was talking about doing. Her eyes glowed white as she summoned a thick cloud of mist around her body. It kept gathering until he could see nothing of her body, and then it rose into the air. The moment it hit the sunlight, it began to fade until there was nothing left.

Not even Ororo.

"Violà!" While he couldn't see her, he could certainly hear the smug tone in her voice. "Invisibility!"

Logan shook his head with a smile. Was there anything that Ororo _couldn't_ do? He waited a few beats and when nothing happened, he assumed that she'd gone on to check the roof and so on.

After about an hour and a half of meticulous searching for anything and everything, they agreed that everything looked alright from the outside. They could never be sure about the inside, but nothing could be done about that. There were nearly four hundred and fifty rooms in this particular hotel, and it'd be impossible to know if there was something amiss without checking each and every one of them. Logan found himself wishing that Kitty had come after all, but going through the rooms in such a way was probably an invasion of privacy.

_And it'd take forever._

After a quick call to update Xavier on their findings – or lack thereof – they were clear to go inside. They weren't the first ones there, but the line of people waiting to go inside all took a collective pause to ogle both Logan and Ororo. After a beat of stiff silence that they probably hadn't even been aware of, they picked up their conversations again.

He picked up a few hushed comments about them as well. Two older women that were chatting thought that Logan was devilishly handsome, and also agreed that Ororo was equally beautiful. A younger couple speculated that Logan was probably a rich businessman and Ororo a well paid escort. Still others wondered if Logan was the paid escort. One woman – he was embarrassed to hear – wondered at the rate for getting such a handsome escort.

After hearing that particular comment, Logan had decided to stop listening. All they were doing was gossiping, and not a single one of them actually came up to Logan or Ororo to simply ask their names or where they were from.

Logan was more than a little irritated with that, if only for the fact that they thought Ororo could be bought. But they obviously knew nothing about her, nor did they care to know. So he let it drop and decided to identify the smells in the room instead.

While Ororo's rainforest scent wasn't any less potent than the day that he'd met her, he'd learned to get used to it and it no longer overwhelmed his senses. Logan still wasn't sure why that was. The most logical explanation was one that Xavier had posed; that, for Logan, the scent of her skin corresponded with his desire for her.

When he'd first met her, her scent had dominated his lungs entirely whenever he was around her. As his desire for her had increased during the fiasco with Stryker, so too had her scent. Though, Logan hadn't noticed it much because of Jean's more powerful cinnamon scent.

And now that Logan was actually with her, he was never left wanting, so her scent was easier to handle.

But that was just a theory.

Logan shook those thoughts away as he inhaled. Humans, naturally, but one scent caught his attention. Salt water. Hadn't some woman in a bar smelled like salt water to him? He'd been on his way back to the mansion, and he'd just heard about that assassination attempt on the president. She'd worn thick glasses and had been sweating lightly. None of the women he saw fit the description of the woman he'd seen there, but that didn't mean much when everyone was more or less dressed for the Oscars.

Then again, he had to take into account the fact that, while every mutant he'd met so far had had a different scent, that didn't necessarily mean that no other mutant on the planet had that same scent.

He let it go and inhaled again. Expensive perfume, cologne, food, champagne that probably cost more that Logan's life… He sighed heavily.

"Bored already," Ororo asked softly.

"More than a little," he answered. "But you should've expected that."

"I did. What I _didn't_ expect was that I'd be bored to. It's harder than I thought to occupy time simply by thinking."

Logan hummed thoughtfully. Thinking was what he did most. His thoughts had often been the reason for his insomnia in the past, and Logan often felt that thinking was the _only_ way to pass time in moments like these. "What were you thinking?"

"How many people I could pickpocket before they stop wondering out loud if I'm a whore," she answered flatly.

Logan raised an eyebrow at her. "You wouldn't do that."

She held up a wallet that was unmistakably _not_ hers. "I've thought about it."

Logan's eyes widened as he stared at her. He knew her well enough to know that she wouldn't take the money inside, but just what the hell _was _she planning on doing with it? And _when_ had she taken it?! Logan had more or less been looking at her the entire time, and he'd thought that she had hardly moved an inch!

She rolled her eyes. "Oh relax. I found it on the roof. I was going to give it to the desk clerk but his eyes were a little shifty."

He relaxed. "Oh, I see. You had me thinking that you were actually that good."

She held up another wallet – _his_ wallet – and smirked. "I am." She swiftly reached forward and placed it back in the inside pocket of his jacket, so gently that he didn't even feel it. Giving him a wink, she strolled past him and up to the doors of the ballroom, which was now open.

A stern looking man in a tux with a clipboard nodded politely enough to them and asked for their names and affiliation. "Ororo Munroe and James Logan," she answered. "And our affiliation is with – "

"The X-Men."

A chill ran up Logan's spine as he felt that familiar sensation of his body not being in his control. He tried to turn his head, but couldn't. Not that he needed to in order to know who the voice belonged to or who was behind his immobility. The tangy copper scent that clung to him should've alerted Logan to his presence, but he hadn't been paying attention.

A falsely welcoming hand rested on his shoulder and Logan was able to move again. He turned and glared at Magneto. The older man was also dressed to blend in perfectly with the rest of the guests, and Logan didn't doubt that Magneto's suit was every bit as functional as his own. "So good of both of you to make it, though I'll admit that I expected Charles to send Scott Summers as well."

"Sir?" the man with the clipboard interrupted. "Name and affiliation, please."

"Eric Lensherr," he said courteously. "Brotherhood of Mutants."

The man hardly blinked as he scrolled through the list without much interest. After a moment he wrote a small check mark by something and nodded to Magneto. "You can go in, sir."

"Thank you." Magneto smiled triumphantly at both Ororo and Logan and gave Logan a good natured pat on the shoulder before entering the ballroom like he'd financed the whole damn party.

* * *

Okay, I'm sorry about the late post. I meant to put it up on Tuesday but some things came up: you know, that whole LIFE thing and whatnot. I know what you're probably thinking: "EXCUSES, EXCUSES!"

But I AM sorry. At least it's only a few days late rather than a few months.

Also, if you care about this sort of thing and want to know EXACTLY what the dress looks like, the link to the dress is below. It's flipping awesome, SO much better than I described it!

http : / / www . simply dresses . com / shop / view item - PD305556


	65. Anxiety

This chapter took me a little while. Partly because I was so excited to get back to action that I added on about a million and one things, and partly because my other story got me sidetracked. But, no worries! Here it is! Oh, and - on a side note - I'd like to thank all of my readers that have made it this far. Whether you're a hardcore RoLo fan or if you just need a little something to waste minutes of you're life with, you guys are all AWESOME!! Okay, I'm done. Enjoy!

* * *

Logan had to consciously make the effort to breathe evenly. They'd expected Magneto, hadn't they? All damn week they'd been preparing to meet him here. It was _why_ they'd come to Atlanta in the first place…

So why the hell was it such a shocker to actually see him?

Was it because he'd calmly and truthfully stated his name and affiliation? Was it because he'd known that some of the X-Men were going to be here to meet him? Was it because Logan had expected Magneto to make a grander entrance; perhaps bursting through the ceiling, complete with cape, helmet and metal boots…

Logan sure as hell wasn't fool enough to believe that he was here because he truly believed in a charity like this. Perhaps he'd donated out of necessity to get in, but Logan knew for a fact that he wasn't sincere about it. Magneto didn't believe in things like this. Not like Xavier did. Perhaps there had been a time that Eric had trusted in coexisting peacefully with humans, but no longer. Mutants were homo superiors, and that's exactly what Magneto saw mutants as; superior to humans.

He _had_ to be up to something.

Ororo looked equally flustered, but not quite as surprised. Instead, her eyes darted around frantically. Was she looking for Mystique? Or perhaps John? "I don't smell him anywhere," Logan said in a low tone.

Ororo nodded, her eyes hard. "Tell me if you do," she said stiffly. He could only nod in response. With that, she blinked hard and locked her emotions down; her face became smooth and stress free, a face that was polite enough for a function like this.

Logan had a harder time of it, but got there eventually. For him, it couldn't be as simple as locking down emotions. Instead, he had to blend in so that he could better stalk his prey.

Not that that scenario did him much good. Magneto had spoken to about three or four people that he seemed to know before strolling back over to Logan and Ororo. "I trust you've all been doing well," he said, his tone polite, as always. "How is Charles?"

"Well," Ororo said in a flat tone. "How about John? You know, apart from the fact that you poisoned his mind."

He _'tsked'_ gently and shook his head. "I didn't poison Pyro, my dear. I enlightened him. You and your institution are what poisoned him. You would have them suppress their powers and live among humans in fear of being discovered."

"And what would you have?" Logan demanded, keeping his voice at a polite volume. "Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but usually you're plan has been to kill humans rather than attempt to live peacefully among them."

"You'd be a fool to think they were innocent."

"I never said they were innocent," Logan snapped back.

"Well, saying that we ought to live _among_ them implies that there's something wrong with us, the mutants. The fact of the matter is that they're the ones at fault. They can't conceive of anything that is outside of what they're used to. They're used to us, but we shouldn't have to hide until they're ready for us."

"Yet you wear a tux to fit in."

"Its a formal event," he said with a casual shrug. "I'm not a barbarian, for heaven's sake."

Ororo narrowed her eyes at him. "What we've always wanted is simply to be counted as equals to humans. You want mutant superiority."

"The only problem with wanting to be equal is that we never _can_ be equal. No human will ever be able to create a storm with their mind, or heal from a bullet wound in a few minutes, or control metal. We've been given gifts, with which to lead the human race."

"Lead them to _what_?!" Logan asked.

"Knowledge."

Logan turned his eyes elsewhere impatiently. For _fuck's_ sake, it shouldn't be so hard to grasp at the gist of what Magneto was saying, but it was. Though, Logan wasn't sure if that was because Magneto wasn't making any sense or if it was because he just couldn't believe that someone would truly think that having powers and plans made them superior in knowledge.

"Not all gifts and ideas are meant to be used and shared," Logan said quietly, still not looking at Magneto. "I guarantee that the world would be a rougher place if that were the case. Don't you think that there are a few gifts that _everyone_ could've done without? Let's take the easiest example..." Logan turned back to Magneto and stared him right in the eye. "Hitler."

Magneto stiffened minutely at that, but Logan still noticed it. He took no delight in it, however. While he'd spent most of World War II fighting rather than liberating - if his memories were any indication - Logan had seen enough pictures and heard enough stories about Hitler's horror to give even him the occasional nightmare.

"Hitler was gifted with powers as simple as diligence and persuasion. Coupled with an idea as simple as creating a superior race, he managed to wipe out entire generations. Six million Jews, half a million Gypsies, the handicapped, Jehovah's witnesses… You lived through that extermination. But instead of using that knowledge to your benefit and the benefit of others, you choose to make a plan that almost parallels the Third Reich!"

Eyes ablaze with fury, Magneto threw out his arm and seized control of Logan's skeleton. He lifted him into the air easily and popped his shoulder out of its socket. Logan yelled between clenched teeth, but it was lost in the sea of terrified shrieks and the footfalls of people scrambling to exit the premises.

But Magneto seemed to pay them no mind. His eyes flickered briefly and Logan felt his other shoulder dislocate before both shoulders were roughly twisted back into place. Logan gasped and blinked away stars. The pain was staggering. He wondered how much more he'd have to endure before he was dropped to the floor. He looked up in time to see a thick, neon blue streak of lightning barely miss Magneto. The wind was so powerful that a few tables overturned, and Ororo's entire form was shivering, as though cold. But Logan knew that it was a white hot rage that made her body tremble so.

Magneto only wore a gleeful smile, and Logan swallowed hard. That look couldn't mean anything good. He stretched his arm out again and seized control of Logan. He heard Ororo growl deep in the back of her throat as she rose a few feet into the air, her eyes glowing. She held her hand out to call on another charge of electricity, and Magneto winked at Logan. His heart stopped. _"Ororo, no!"_

But both had already moved. Logan's claws sprang out and Magneto threw him right in between himself and Ororo. The instant that the lightning hit his claws, he flashed back to being injected. The heat was almost the same, as was the inability to breathe or stop it in any way. He felt his insides burning and his heart beating much too fast. _Everything_ felt like it was going to explode.

Even long after it stopped, Logan had to fight to not scream at the blinding pain. When he could finally see, Ororo was backing away from him, horror in her eyes. "You and Wolverine have gotten quite cozy, haven't you, Storm," Magneto asked cheerfully.

He slowly pushed Logan in Ororo's direction. Logan frowned in confusion before he realized _exactly_ what it was that Magneto was doing. The claws in his right hand retracted into his arm, but the left claws stayed out as Logan's entire body pinned Ororo to a table. His claws, still scalding hot, were poised right under her chin, almost touching the skin. She was taking shallow breaths in an attempt to keep his claws from burning the exposed skin of her chest and throat.

"Knock it off, Magneto," Ororo shouted, though she never took her worried blue eyes off of Logan.

"I don't think I should," he said casually. "You see, you took the risk in coming here. Especially you, Wolverine. And you don't even know why, do you?" Logan growled this time. Of course they didn't know! If they'd had even an _inkling_ of what the hell Magneto was doing here then they wouldn't be out in the open, but in the shadows waiting to strike. "Charles mistakenly thinks that I want to be solely responsible for the mutant revolution. Not at all true. Why else would I have Mystique and Pyro by my side?"

Logan closed his eyes in defeat. "This was all a diversion, wasn't it?"

"I'm sure you knew all along, Wolverine. You should've warned him."

"I _did_!"

Magneto hummed thoughtfully at that. "Well, then I suppose this will serve as a reminder to Charles that you're smarter than he gives you credit for."

"You don't credit me with smarts."

"I don't credit you with _intelligence_. There's a difference."

"Where is John?" Ororo demanded.

"Right this moment? I don't know. He didn't want to pay to rent a tux, so I suppose he's out somewhere. I'm not his mother. He knows that he's responsible for himself."

Logan would've guessed as much. It wasn't John that they ought to be concerned about anyway, but rather Mystique. She was his most trusted follower. Magneto seemed to consider her his equal in every way, which meant that she was the one they needed to find if Magneto was the diversion.

"I'll bet you know where Mystique is," Logan challenged.

"As a matter of fact, I do," he replied, a smile in his voice. "She's doing a little research right now. There's a chemical that's being developed right now that will bring about our destruction."

"The destruction of the Brotherhood?"

"The destruction of mutant-kind," he corrected. "They'll beguile the entire nation with lies. They'll tell us that taking the drug is voluntary, but mark my words; they will be the ones to draw first blood. They'll force it on us, just like Hitler forced his Third Reich on us.

"Do not presume to know how I want to lead mankind, Wolverine, because you have _no_ _idea_. The superiority of one race does not equal the extinction of another. If that were the case, then no other creatures would exist on the planet. We can live with humans harmoniously, we can lead them to mutual peace, but we will _never_ be equals, just as a dog will never be equal to a human. It's not cruel; it's just the way things are. And dogs and humans still manage to be friends."

"Provided that the dog obeys," Logan snapped.

"They live comfortably if they do," Magneto replied with disinterest. "And, after all, the man is the one who cares for the dog. But I digress. Unless we act to prevent this drug from being mass marketed, there will be no hope for others like us."

"And what is the drug?" Ororo asked.

"Now, why should I tell you that? Do you think I'm a fool? You'll only work to intercept us. And besides, letting them know that we're on to them too soon is a mistake."

"If you truly believe that this drug will bring about the extinction of mutants, then why wouldn't you want to rally more to your cause?"

"Oh I do! Make no mistake of that, Storm. But I know for a fact that ones such as yourselves would never see things my way. Again, I ask; do you think I'm a fool?"

"Perhaps you're not foolish," Logan said, "but certainly corrupt."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night…"

Ororo's eyes flashed white and two tables on either side of them hurtled themselves past his vision, in Magneto's direction. Logan heard wood shatter behind him, as well as a delighted laugh. Logan's claws slowly inched closer to Ororo's throat and she hissed quietly when the hot metal finally touched the skin under her chin and burned her.

Logan began to panic. Magneto wasn't the type to kill, was he? That's what he had Mystique for. But the threat was unmistakable; perhaps he wouldn't kill Ororo, but he certainly wasn't above hurting her. She was, after all, the enemy.

But how far would he take it? Maybe he was just having a little fun, but Logan didn't care for this kind of fun _at all!_ A small drop of blood emerged from her skin and trickled down her neck. _"Let her GO!"_ Logan shouted.

That only made Magneto chuckle again. "Perhaps you two have gotten _more_ than just cozy," he teased. "Tell me, Wolverine…" He pushed Logan's claws into her skin just a little more, causing larger drops to ooze out of the small cut and begin pooling at the hollow of her throat. "How long do you think it'll take the police to get here?"


	66. Panic

Logan opened his eyes with a groan, then closed them immediately. Too bright! And he didn't need to look around to know where he was. The hard surface he was laying on could only be the table in the medical room. _Why don't I just move all my shit down here and sleep on a goddamn army cot?!_ he thought grumpily. _All the fucking time I spend down here…_

But _why_ was he down here? He rubbed his forehead as he replayed what he remembered. He and Ororo had been standing in line to go into the charity ball, Magneto had caught up to them, they'd traded insults before Logan had made him truly pissed…

Then…

Logan grumbled in frustration. Nothing. He frowned in concentration. Okay, how had he pissed off Magneto? He remembered vaguely comparing him to Hitler, and then… everything was black.

_Well, __**that's**__ fantastic…_

Certainly Ororo would know what had happened after that. He gingerly tried to get up, and his head started swimming the second he was upright. He tried to blink the colors away, but they refused to abate. They continued swirling and dancing across his vision until they became blurry shapes. The howling in his ears became voices, and his heart was suddenly beating a mile a minute.

-

"_I'll hurt you!"_

"_**I'm**__ hurting __**you**__ now!"_

"_It could hurt me too if I do this," she hissed. "Do you realize the gravity of the situation that we're in? Your claws are metal. Blood is eighty-two percent water. And you want me to __**electrocute**__ you?!"_

"_You're immune, aren't you?"_

"_Well yes, but __**you're**__ not!"_

"_That's the point. __**I'll**__ heal."_

"_How do you know that? In order to blast you away, I'd have to wrap your entire skeleton in so much lighting that it'll overpower Magneto's control. Then I'll have to seize control of your skeleton through the lightning to throw you off of me. You're entire body will fry!"_

"_An interesting hypothesis,__" Magneto commented carelessly. _"_Assuming, of course, that you have that much power in the first place__."_

"_I'll heal," Logan repeated, pointedly ignoring Magneto. He was starting to become truly frantic. While the cut under her chin wasn't fatal – yet – it wouldn't stop bleeding because of the gentle nudges that Magneto continued giving her. The small pool of blood that had sat at the hollow of her throat had filled and spilled over the side of her neck, creating a puddle on the table. Her white hair was becoming dirty with it, and a thin river was creeping towards the edge of the table. A few times it looked as though she'd had to blink hard in an effort to keep conscious, and it would only get worse the longer she prolonged throwing him off of her._

So help me, _Logan thought, _if ever I get my hands on Magneto, I'll tear his sorry ass apart for making me do this!

"_Ororo," he begged. "I always heal. __**Trust**_ _me!"_

"_Logan, I – "_

"_If I hurt you more than I already have, I know for a fact that I __**won't**_ _heal!"_

_She stared at him for what felt like a small eternity. It was the closest he'd ever gotten to telling her that he loved her, and she seemed to know it. "You're not immune to death, Logan," she said quietly, her eyes frosting over._

"_I cheat it better than you do," was his curt reply._

"_You can't __**possibly**__ imagine how interesting this is to watch," Magneto put in, still sounding slightly bored._

_Perhaps he didn't believe that Ororo was really going to do it? They ignored him again. She placed her hand on his cheek and stroked gently. "I'm sorry," she whispered._

"_Kick his ass," Logan responded._

_Her brows knotted together in a fearsome rage and she grabbed his claws._

-

Logan cried out as he collapsed. His entire body was shivering. His skeleton suddenly felt hot, like he'd been burned from the inside out. He sat on the ground, waiting for more to come to him. But nothing did. The pain must've been so great that he'd blacked out instantly. He still didn't know how long he'd been out. He didn't know where Ororo was, either. He didn't even know if she was okay.

Panic lent him the energy to get up and try to get a hold of himself. If he was back in the mansion, then she had to be too, right? If she wasn't, then that meant that she'd have to be in a hospital because her injuries were too extensive to be dealt with here…

He bolted out of the medical room and down the halls towards the elevator. He'd check her room, then Xavier's office. If he couldn't find either Ororo or Xavier , then perhaps he'd try finding Scott in that training room that he was still building. Logan just hoped that he'd still be coherent by that time. His desperation to find her was already starting to make him overly jittery.

As soon as he made it to the main floor of the mansion, he sprinted up to her room at top speed, only to find it empty. _Don't panic_, he told himself as he ran to Xavier's office. _It's a big mansion. She could be anywhere._

But it was equally possible that she wasn't there at all.

He quieted that train of thought as he knocked on Xavier's door. No answer. He didn't hear or smell anything on the other side of the door, but opened it and looked inside just to be sure. Nothing. He closed the door and decided to visit Scott's room just in case before going all the way back down into the basement. He knocked, then burst in to find it empty. Scott wasn't in his room either. It was much more likely that Scott was down in that training room of his, but Logan still had to fight to breathe evenly as he ran down the hall, rounding a corner too sharply.

He collided with someone _hard_ and that someone went to the ground hard while Logan only staggered back. He shook off his shock and almost left the person to collect themselves before he realized just who it was. _"Storm?!?"_

"I shouldn't be surprised that you're so strong after only a day and a half of sleep," she mumbled, wincing as she tried to get up. "Thirty-six hours after having lightning wrapped around your entire metal skeleton, you hardly stagger when I crash _right_ into you."

He leaned down and wrapped an arm around her back to pick her up, but immediately let go when she hissed in pain. "Bruises," she said by way of explanation as she sat herself up. "I kicked his ass but that old man has a lot more fight in him than I thought."

"He hurt you?" Logan asked, fighting to keep his temper in check.

She gave him a look that was half tired, half irritated. "Exhibit A," she said, lifting her head. Two white butterfly bandages were holding the small laceration under her chin shut.

He reached down tilted her head to the side to better examine the wound. The skin around it was an angry red, and it was scabbed over. But it wasn't fatal. In fact, she could probably take the bandages off, if she wanted to. But he'd leave that decision up to her. He leaned down to pick her up again, with a much gentler touch, and carried her to her room. She winced a few times, but kept silent.

"So where were you just now?" he asked.

"Dinner," she responded. "But _everyone_ heard the pounding footsteps the second you got off the elevator. It figures that you'd wake up in the twenty minutes that I leave your side. I figured you were looking for me; that's why I came up."

Logan frowned. "Why didn't Xavier tell me, if everyone heard it?"

"He's not here. You remember when Magneto mentioned Mystique's little assignment? Well, apparently she broke into the FDA building to steal information regarding that drug he was going on about. This afternoon, Xavier was asked to go in to see if he could find out what information it was that she stole. He left with Scott about five hours ago, so I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it's not going so well."

"Xavier did mention something about her mutation making it difficult to read her mind," Logan commented as he opened the door to her room and gently kicked it shut behind him.

Ororo nodded as he laid her on the bed the way he might a broken eggshell. Any other time that would've annoyed her, but she didn't comment on it this time. "If Magneto can do that sort of thing to trick the professor into sending us someplace as a distraction, then I wouldn't doubt that the bastard taught Mystique and John how to do it too."

Logan nodded and laid himself beside her. "Did the police catch Magneto?"

"No. I managed to slow him down by increasing the pressure in his ear and taking some of the oxygen out of his lungs, but he used some sort of magnetic charge along with the iron in my blood to spike my blood pressure. He got away."

"And regular police wouldn't be able to take him even in that weakened state. But then, how the hell did Mystique get captured? She kicked _my_ ass."

"If she got caught, chances are that she _let_ herself get caught."

That made sense. Another part of their plan, no doubt. She would possibly get more information from the inside in that way; pretending that she knew more than she did in order to trick her interrogators into telling her too much. Escape might be a little on the difficult side for her, but certainly not impossible.

He frowned as something occurred to him. "He didn't _just _increase your blood pressure," he accused. "Were that the case, you wouldn't have bruises."

She gave him a tired scowl. "Every damn table and chair in that ballroom had metal legs. And he tossed all of them at me. Some missed, some didn't."

"I'll kill him," Logan muttered.

Ororo snorted. "_I'll_ kill him."

"Can I ask why the hell it took so long for you to shock me?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "Despite all the ill will he has for us, Magneto respects his own kind. I thought he was bluffing. I thought for sure that he wouldn't dispose of a mutant as powerful and talented as me, even if I am the enemy."

Logan hadn't thought about it like that. It made a little sense, though it didn't comfort him to think that Magneto could've easily 'disposed' of her if he'd wanted to. "So… _was_ he bluffing?"

She shrugged. "He might have been. I have no doubt that he wanted to put me out of commission for a while, but I don't think that he really would have killed me. He looked pretty shocked – no pun intended – when I electrocuted you."

She struggled to sit up slowly and painfully, waving off a hand for help. It irked him that she could be worried about her ego at a time like this, but he said nothing. When he realized what she was doing, he moved the blankets so she could crawl under them. She settled herself in his arms, half asleep in a matter of seconds. Logan buried his nose in her hair and was drifting just as quickly.

"No more," she muttered sleepily. "We can talk in the morning. And I have a friend coming over tomorrow, so try not to be an ass."

"Why would I do that?" Logan mumbled back.

"I just have a feeling that he'll bring it out of you."

"Then that's his fault, not mine." But Ororo was already asleep, and Logan was out a few seconds later.


	67. Visitors

All good guesses as to the guest star, but I'm afraid that no one got it right. Well, one person almost got it right, but it'll be a few chapters before you know who you are. ;) And HUGE thank you to SuniGyrl for the feedback that you gave me. Great stuff, truly! Enjoy!

* * *

Logan woke slowly the next morning. He glanced at the clock on Ororo's nightstand and mentally corrected himself; it wasn't morning, but rather three in the afternoon.

So much for Ororo's theory of a full recovery in only thirty-six hours. He wanted nothing more than to bury his face into her numerous pillows and go back to sleep, but he forced himself to wake up. He had no idea how long Ororo had been up, but he could guess that the very latest she'd slept in had been nine or ten. She wasn't one to sleep in extra late like he was. But then, she didn't wake as easily as he did in the middle of the night either.

He stretched wide and made his way out of her room and into his own for a shower and a change of clothes. If he was interpreting the time-line she'd given him correctly, that meant that today was the start of spring break. Hearing running down the halls and a few objects crashing confirmed that suspicion, and he had to tell more than a few groups of children to settle down as he made his way down to the main floor.

On his way to the kitchen, Logan caught sight of a prim and proper looking woman simply standing in the entryway. He had to do a double take, as the red hair was what first captured his attention. But this woman's hair was much longer, and her hair was more of a bright copper rather than Jean's deep auburn.

Nevertheless, it was odd that anyone should just be standing there unless they were a guest. Logan didn't recognize her, but he still got the feeling that he'd seen her somewhere before. She didn't smell like a mutant, but she seemed polite enough to not be from the government. As the children ran by – and damn near ran over her – she smiled and stepped out of their way, not at all indignant. It was almost as though she was used to such behavior, or perhaps worse on occasion.

"I wish I had that much patience," Logan said, walking over to her.

She smiled brightly at Logan. "Believe me, I've had _years_ of practice," she said smoothly. "This really isn't that bad."

-

"If you say so." Logan offered his hand for her to shake. "I don't think I've seen you around here before. I'm Logan, by the way. Who are you?"

She gave him another bright smile and took his offered hand. "My name is Virginia Potts."

"We like to call her Pepper."

A suave looking man strutted into the entryway and gave his surroundings an appraising look. "If not for the freckles, then for the attitude. On the rare occasion that she lets it out, that is. Or Potts, from time to time." He stopped rambling and looked squarely at Logan. Sizing him up, perhaps? _Pack a lunch if you think you can take me, bub,_ he thought, not sure if he liked the vibe that he was getting from this guy. He had the air of a man that figured he could get _anything_ he wanted, if only he laid his eyes on it. Again, Logan got the feeling that he'd seen this guy before too, but he couldn't put a name to the face.

"It's all a matter of preference, really," the man continued, waving a hand in dismissal. "I'm a bit jealous, to be honest. I don't have any cool nicknames. Everyone just calls me – "

"Tony!" The trio turned as Ororo descended the staircase with an excited smile. "I thought I felt a charge in the air!"

Logan felt it too, now that she mentioned it. It was like a very light vibration in the air, a quiet hum that he felt more than heard. And it only increased the closer that Tony got to him.

And now he knew why. Tony _Stark_. He'd been all over the news a few months ago when he'd announced that he was Iron Man. That meant that the charge he felt was probably from that contraption in his chest that was supposed to kept him alive. And Pepper – or Virginia or whatever she preferred – was his girlfriend or assistant or something. Logan didn't follow the lives of others enough to actually know, nor was he particularly interested. Their personal lives were their own business.

So Tony Stark was the friend that Ororo had been speaking of the night before. He had to be, considering the fact that he easily slid his arms around Ororo and gave her _very_ friendly kisses on both of her cheeks. The kisses were a bit too close to her lips for comfort, but she returned the gesture just as easily, prompting Logan to quietly grind his teeth as he watched.

It was annoying, to say the least, that he wasn't past this jealousy yet. She wasn't an object – certainly not _his_ object. He had no reason at all to be jealous, did he? She'd said that he was just a friend…

But did a _friend_ let his hands rest comfortably on her waist like that? Or give her a smirk that seemed to say 'I might have a surprise for you if you come a bit closer'? Logan swallowed hard.

"I heard you were having trouble disabling a bomb," Tony said casually, never taking his eyes off of her.

Ororo rolled her eyes and hit his chest playfully. "Do you even know how many months ago that was?"

"I never said I was here to help. I just said I'd heard about it." He threw her a wink and gave her hips a good-natured pat as he turned to Logan. "I guess you know my name now, but I didn't catch yours."

"I didn't throw it," Logan snapped back.

Tony's smile was friendly enough, but his current position with Ororo made it hard for Logan to notice anything else. Logan raked him over with a glare that might've paralyzed a lion, and Tony pursed his lips together, glancing questioningly – and a bit fearfully – at Ororo.

And Ororo was giving Logan the same glare that he was giving Tony. "This would be what I was referring to when I asked you not to be an ass."

"You also mentioned that you believed that he'd bring it out of me," Logan returned without pause. "As I said before, I believe that that would make this _his_ fault. You ought to give credit where credit is due, _darling_."

"And I'm being credited with turning you into an ass?" Tony asked in what was clearly mock surprise. "And just what the hell did _I _do?!"

Logan's eyes traveled down to Tony's hands – which were still on Ororo's hips – for a fraction of a second, but it seemed that the other man caught it. He let go of Ororo and stepped over to Pepper, placing his hand on the small of her back. "An easy misconception – for those that don't know me well, that is. I have eyes for only one woman."

"I'll bet you do," Pepper commented, patiently removing Tony's arm from her.

"That sounded suspiciously like 'I love you too'," he said, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

Pepper rolled her eyes, but the patient look on her face and even in her eyes never faltered. Logan was impressed. "Would you stop that, please?"

Tony let it drop with a sigh worthy of a drama queen and looked around the foyer once again. "I'll bet a place this big has a basement with _all kinds_ of fun toys! Specifically, the one that you mentioned needing a second mechanic for. This is Scooter's project, right?"

"Yes, and you know that he hates it when you call him that," Ororo told him.

Tony waved a hand carelessly. "He'll get over it. If it bothered him that much, he wouldn't've asked me to come and help out."

"He _didn't_. I did."

Logan felt the urge to excuse himself, as Tony and Ororo had all of their attention focused on each other. But Pepper too was standing in the background of the two friends, and didn't seem to be feeling at all out of the loop. In fact, she didn't seem to care that she was being left out. Perhaps she was used to this? Or perhaps she didn't _want_ to be in the loop?

Logan turned to her. "That doesn't bother you?" he asked quietly, gesturing to Tony as he chuckled and wrapped an arm around Ororo's shoulders.

Pepper followed Logan's gaze and stiffened so slightly that she probably hadn't even felt it. Was she just noticing this for the first time? That led Logan to believe that maybe she'd been tuning it out, but now her attention was focused on the pair. She'd plastered on a look of patience that didn't quite reach her eyes. A mask, if Logan wanted to be perfectly honest. _Well, _that's _familiar, _he thought. "Should it?" she asked evenly.

Logan didn't bother answering that question. Perhaps she was used to Tony acting that way, but it seemed that she was also used to pretending that it didn't bother her. Since he didn't know her well enough to accuse her of such a thing, he let it go. It did, however, interest him that she was behaving in much the same way that Ororo did from time to time. He made a mental note to pay closer attention to that in the future as he returned to the present.

"While I don't think that your help and ingenuity will be wanted," Ororo was saying, "I do think that it's needed. Scott is a good mechanic, but it's always good to have a second pair of eyes. And the fact that you'll know how to work the thing after ten minutes of looking at it doesn't hurt either."

"Five minutes. Give me a _little_ credit," Tony said, suddenly frowning in confusion. "You're a good mechanic. Why aren't _you_ helping him?"

Ororo narrowed her eyes slightly, as though wincing. "He and I haven't been so friendly these past few months."

Tony nodded in understanding. "His loss," he finally said with an easy shrug. "Now you've got me! And we can be as friendly as you…" Glancing at Logan, Tony cleared his throat. "So, what's the project?"


	68. Testing

Okay, so I'm going out of town to help my grandparents and I'm not sure how long I'm going to be there with them. I'm thinking that it MIGHT be for around two weeks… I'll still be writing – make no mistake – but I highly doubt that I'll be able to post. If I get the chance, I promise to sneak over to the local library and post something. Provided that I don't wig out at the first person that sneezes or coughs. Just a heads up…

And thank you *SO* much to The Lanka and SuniGyrl for the feedback. Okay, let's do this! Enjoy!

* * *

For the next few days that he was there, Ororo spent more time with Tony than she did with Logan. He tried not to let it bother him, but he found himself brooding alone more often than not, especially when he caught sight of how easily Tony could make her laugh and how happy she was just being around him.

It was maddening, to say the least, but Logan felt that bringing it up might border on being possessive. Technically, he felt that he was allowed to be a little possessive, but as neither of them had yet admitted to loving the other, he knew that he might be over stepping his bounds by mentioning that it bothered him. Yes, he'd almost said it when Magneto had used him to pin her down, but almost didn't count.

So, for those days that Ororo spent in the company of Tony Stark, Logan continually reminded himself that they were only friends and that he trusted Ororo as he stayed out of their way. He didn't purposefully avoid them, but he didn't go out of his way to be where they were either.

It wasn't too hard to avoid them, however, as they spent a lot of time down in the X-Men basement. While Tony had insisted that he and Pepper were on spring break vacation, Tony could always be found down in the basement or in the garage, tinkering with various devices and even a few of the vehicles. Logan found himself wondering if Tony and Scott were getting along or if they were butting heads, but he didn't have to wait long to find out.

After Tony had only been at the mansion for four day, Scott managed to _finally_ finish his training program, and he invited the X-Men, plus Tony and Pepper to witness its first training run.

Stepping into the large control room, it was easy to see why it had taken so long to complete this project. There were literally hundreds of buttons and knobs on every vertical surface, and there was a portion of the wall that was _nothing_ but knobs. Logan gave it a long look before blinking and turning to Ororo. He wouldn't be expected to learn how to work all this, would he?

"It looks worse than it really is," she assured him, patting his chest. "The majority of these controls are for details of the training simulation. A switch to flip if you want fire, a dial to control the intensity of the flames… wind patterns, darkness, light intensity, that kind of thing." Logan nodded. Looking at it in that way, perhaps it made sense to have so many buttons. He hoped that they were at least labeled…

Tony strutted – Logan had yet to see the billionaire simply walk like a normal person – into the control room and looked around with wide eyes. A quiet growl rose from the back of his throat and he shuddered, as though he'd just…

Logan grimaced, shuddering himself in an attempt to shake off whatever he may have just witnessed. Ororo pinched the bridge of her nose as she shook her head, Pepper rolled her eyes, and the younger X-Men seemed divided between thinking it was hilarious and not quite understanding what may have just happened.

"Can we do the test run now, Scooter?" Though Tony sounded like a pleading toddler, Logan couldn't help but notice that his eyes were razor sharp as they looked over every detail, missing nothing.

"It's Scott," he answered pointedly. "And yes, we're going to do the test run of the actual training session now. That's why you're here, Logan. You'll heal if anything goes wrong in there."

"Well, at least he can be of some use to you," Ororo said sourly.

"Would _you_ like to test it?" Scott asked her, sounding to Logan as though he was more bored than annoyed with Ororo's response.

"Ororo, Scott, please," Xavier said patiently. "Let's not start another petty argument. Cyclops, you needn't goad her like that. And Storm, you know what he means. It would be better for Logan to get a minor injury and heal from it quickly."

"In the _very _unlikely event that something goes wrong," Tony declared cheerfully. "And I, for one, would _love_ to test it!"

"_Absolutely_ not," Pepper exclaimed, frowning at Tony. "If someone with a regenerative mutation is required to test it then how do you think you'll fare?"

"Besides," Ororo put in, "this kind of thing is much too dangerous for a human. No matter what their power is, it's been scientifically proven that mutants are generally stronger and faster than the average human."

Tony pouted; trembling lower lip, sad eyes and all. "Experiments are my specialty, Potts! And Storm, come _on!_ I designed a skeleton suit _specifically_ for this training endeavor!"

"In four days?" she asked skeptically.

His mouth twisted into a sour frown. "Three and a half, thank you! I'm not worried about a few cuts and bruises. And tread carefully, because if the next words you speak are something akin to, 'you'll get more than a few cuts and bruises', then perhaps this isn't a good program for your children to participate in."

"That's why Logan is testing it," Pepper insisted.

"And I _just _said that mutants are stronger and faster than humans," Ororo said.

Tony shrugged. "I chose not to hear that."

"Logan really is the strongest," Marie insisted. "He took a bullet right to the head and was only laid out for about a minute or two."

Kitty sighed. "I can't believe I missed that," she muttered.

Logan glared at her, but it was only half-hearted. "I'm terribly sorry for your loss."

"Besides," Tony continued, "You guys say that Logan needs to go in. He'll be in there to protect me."

Before Tony could fully extend his arm to throw it around Logan's shoulders, he glared at the billionaire and growled low in the back of his throat. "Don't touch me, clown," Logan told him flatly.

Tony nodded, running a hand through his hair. He seemed to be in favor of actually keeping it. "See, Potts. I'll be fine."

Pepper still didn't look convinced. "Tony…"

"The skeleton armor is in the jet! The jet is in their private hanger. It's virtually weightless, but every bit as functional – minus the guns, that is. I've tested the thrusters, the scanners… everything! It's _perfect!_ _Pleeease?_" The man disgraced himself by even bouncing a little, folding his hands together and batting his eyes at her. He didn't honestly think that a woman as practical as Pepper was actually going to fall for…

"Are you going in there, Logan?" she asked him with a stern expression.

Logan raised an eyebrow at her, but shrugged all the same. "Apparently."

In all honestly, he didn't mind being the guinea pig for this experiment. The fact that it had taken Scott so long to work on this project made Logan insanely curious about it. And he wasn't indignant about Scott assuming that Logan was going to test it either. It was sensible to have him test it so that others wouldn't get hurt, just in case there was something wrong with it. With a project this big, Logan didn't find it hard to believe that there could be at least a few problems with the machine.

And he trusted Scott as a mechanic. Maybe Logan might get zapped or burned while in there, but he wasn't expecting the room to cave in on him. He'd be fine.

Tony… was a different story. But, for all Logan knew, he was perfectly capable of watching his own back. He was Iron Man, after all.

Pepper sighed and glared at Tony before turning back to Logan. "Watch him, please?" she grumbled.

Logan shrugged again, neither confirming nor denying that he would do it. In the back of his mind, he knew that it'd make Pepper feel better if she at least thought that he was keeping an eye on Tony, but he sure as hell wasn't going to bend over backwards to babysit the man.

Pepper sighed again. "Fine."

_"Yes!"_ Tony leaned in and gave her a lightning fast peck on the lips. By the time she seemed to gather enough wits for outrage, Tony was already out the door, presumably to get this skeleton armor of his. An indignant growl rose in the back of Pepper's throat as she folded her arms across her chest.

Ororo tugged gently at Logan's arm, leading him just outside the door of the control room. "You don't like him," she said flatly once she'd closed the door.

Logan looked away from her. "I'm indifferent," he said evenly. "He's not my friend. I don't have to like him."

"_Why_ don't you like him? Please tell me it's not because he's a flirt. Have you noticed that he flirts with just about everyone? It's harmless."

"It's not just that. It's…" Logan narrowed his eyes, searching for the right word. "He's just a tool," he said finally. "The guy runs his mouth like a motor, he's too touchy-feely, he assumes that everyone – man or woman – is in love with him…"

Ororo nodded slowly. "As I said, he's a bit of a flirt," she admitted.

"He _winked_ at me yesterday," Logan told her, not at all as amused by it as she seemed to be. The corner of her mouth twitched, but she managed not to burst into laughter. Logan felt that hot jealousy stab at him _again_. Why couldn't he make her laugh like that?

"It's not that I don't believe you," she said, covering her mouth momentarily. "I saw him wink at Scott too."

"Is he really that flirtatious that women just aren't enough?"

"As flattered as I am," Tony said, slowly making his way down the hall towards them, "It wasn't winking at you, Logan. I was winking at the lovely brunette that was standing behind you. Every time I see her, she throws me a wink before she disappears through a wall. I was just letting her know that her efforts to get my attention weren't going unnoticed."

Logan nodded, cracking his knuckles as he stepped away from Ororo and up to Tony. "You were winking at _Kitty_?!"

"Okay." Ororo stepped in between them, facing Logan. "Please, just let it go. Kitty could be doing much worse things than smiling at a handsome rich man and you know it. I'm sure Scott is ready to start this thing, so let's get to it."

Logan backed off, but only for Ororo's sake. After this training session, he'd corner Tony alone. Until then, he'd have to play nice. He went into the specified door of the training room, standing in the center with his hands on his hips and waiting impatiently as Tony loudly clanked his way in.

The room was almost identical to Cerebro, minus the bridge and the control system. But it was every bit as large and shiny and pristine. Logan wondered at how exactly this training session was going to work. Was it like Cerebro in that it would create pictures for them to see? Or would it perhaps target their minds so that any and everyone inside would see and hear the same things?

_I guess I'll find out,_ he thought. _As soon as Stark hurries his ass up…_

Besides the large metal boots, the 'skeleton armor' he was wearing didn't look like much more than a full body neoprene suit with strategically placed metal plates. He'd certainly be safe if they were going out to race dirt bikes…

Then again, this training simulation wasn't supposed to be impossible. Truthfully, the suit Tony was wearing was probably as effective as the uniforms that any of the X-Men wore. The boots and gloves were, Logan suspected, thick because of the thrusters that Tony had spoken of. At least he'd be able to fly.

"Okay," Scott's voice said over the speaker system. "To start, I'm going to put you guys on a simple suburban street against Multiple Man. As soon as you've taken down the opponents, I'll shut the system down, I can go over the results – "

"_We_ can go over the results, Scooter," Tony corrected.

" – not if you keep calling me that – and then we can try a simulation that's a bit more strenuous. You guys ready?"

"Always."

The room hummed loudly for a few seconds before the scene around them changed completely. Logan looked around, amazed that it truly looked like he was on the street of any suburban neighborhood in America. The sun was shining, birds could be heard chirping, and there was even a breeze, just as Ororo had said.

"Wow," Logan muttered, thoroughly impressed.

"How're you ladies doing?" said a cocky voice.

Logan and Tony both spun around to find Multiple Man standing behind them, his arms folded across his chest and a boastful smirk playing across his lips. He looked _so_ lifelike! As real as Tony or his own two hands. Maybe Ororo had been right to suggest that Tony lend a hand with the project. Scott was good, but was he _this _good?

"I see that my splendor has you left speechless," Multiple Man commented. _Even the attitude is right,_ Logan thought. "So, are we going to do this, or what?"

He began blinking rapidly, and with every blink another copy of himself appeared until there were at least fifteen or sixteen of him.

"Holy shit," Tony whispered, taking a cautious step back.

Logan considered ignoring him completely and just doing what he did best, but then he had a thought: this was a test run of the training session. That meant that this wouldn't be overly difficult, and _that_ meant that Logan wouldn't have to over exert himself. The corner or his mouth kicked up into a smirk. He could scare the hell out of Tony right now, and he could disguise it by appearing to intimidate Multiple Man.

Perhaps Ororo would see thought that charade…

It was more than likely that she'd see through it, but if Tony Stark could talk his way out of ever getting into trouble with her, dammit if Logan couldn't too!

Clenching his hands into fists, he crossed them over his chest, forming an 'X' as he slowly extended his claws. He then dropped into a fighting stance, pointing his claws at his opponent in a way that made them gleam in the sun.

Logan discreetly glanced at Tony out of the corner of his eyes and was pleased to see that his eyes were nearly bulging out of their sockets. "Holy _shit!!_"

"I get that a lot," Logan replied with disinterest.

All of the Multiple Mans – or perhaps it was Multiple Men? – charged at Logan and Tony at once. While Logan took the stampede like an NFL linebacker, Tony tilted his hands so that they were parallel with the ground and rose into the air. Once he seemed to stabilize himself at a comfortable height, he pointed his palms at several of the simulated mutants and heavy bursts of _something_ made them fly at least ten feet away.

Logan knocked four of them down no problem, only feeling odd zaps when they managed to hit him in some way. He concentrated on his own fight, realizing that while it wasn't as easily as he's initially assumed, it was still kind of fun. _Now I know where to get my fix if I'm jonesing for a fight…_

"Incoming!" Tony shouted.

Logan turned, expecting to see one of their opponents hurtling something at him. He really didn't expect that that something would be Tony.

They collided hard enough to knock the air out of Logan's lungs, but not hard enough to send them to the ground. He staggered back a few steps and inhaled sweet oxygen before he realized what had happened.

He'd caught Tony…

And he was still holding the man, bridal style! The clown even had his arms around Logan's neck!!

While Logan glared down at Tony, Tony smiled up at Logan, batting his eyes. "You're my hero," he said, his voice easily an octave higher than normal.

Logan scowled and dropped him gracelessly. Tony landed hard, right on his ass. Wincing as he slowly got up, he rubbed gingerly and glared at Logan. "Thank you very little," he said sourly in his normal voice.

"You're welcome even less," Logan replied indifferently.


	69. Retaliation

Yay, guess who's back? As promised, here's a chapter that I wrote while I was away! Enjoy!

* * *

Logan sat on one of the couches in the living room, only half paying attention to the basketball game that the students were watching. Instead, he was thinking. He and Tony had only been in the Danger Room – as Scott had decided to call it – two hours ago, but he still couldn't get over the fact that Tony had surprised him, the Wolverine!

He had been merciless in making Tony work but even Logan had to admit that, for a human, Tony had a lot of strength and stamina.

Though Tony had insisted that the armor was light, Logan knew for a fact that it wasn't. When he'd caught Tony, it had felt like he weighed at least three hundred pounds. Tony appeared to be fairly muscular, but there was no way in hell that he was three-hundred-pounds-of-pure-muscle heavy. At most, he was probably a hundred and eighty pounds. That meant that his armor had to be roughly a hundred and twenty pounds. That wasn't too much weight for Logan to bear – he was positive that his own skeleton weighed more than that. It wasn't too much even for Ororo, but most humans would stagger and be exceedingly clumsy under such weight, especially when it wasn't settled on the back or shoulders.

And Logan also couldn't help but notice that the hum in the air from Tony's heart reactor or whatever it was called seemed to be the equivalent of a mutant scent. A mutant scent was all the only thing that he could think to compare it to.

It made him wonder if it was possible for someone to be partly mutant.

Perhaps there were humans that possessed a mutant gene that never fully developed. At least, not into a power as fantastical as accelerated healing or pyrokinesis. Or, it was possible that Tony's intelligence was his mutation. He had, after all, created that contraption in his chest out of scrap metal while in a cave in Afghanistan!

It was an interesting concept, but Logan supposed that he ought to leave that kind of thinking to a mutant as knowledgeable and experienced as Xavier. Besides, it was hard to imagine that Tony Stark possessed the mutant power of intelligence when he was loudly singing the chorus of Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl' as he walked by.

Pepper hardly looked up at her boss as he walked by. She was working on something on her computer and, whatever it was, it seemed that she'd been at it since they'd arrived at the X-Men mansion.

Logan switched his attention to Pepper, who was a much more interesting subject at the moment. Instead of voicing his irritation at Tony and Ororo being so openly close, he'd decided that retaliation would be much more satisfying, and Pepper was the perfect target.

Tony's flirting was always over the top, and age didn't seem to bother him in the least – though Logan could grudgingly admit that Tony at least kept it PG. But Pepper was a different story entirely. When Tony flirted with her, it was much more subtle, and he seemed to consciously not want to push too hard or too far with her. It also seemed more genuine, and he seemed to light up when Pepper smiled at him or laughed.

_"Well, when you saw Dr. Grey come down you looked pretty happy to see her," _Bobby had said._ "But you lit up like a Christmas tree when you saw Professor M – "_

Logan had cut him off, but he could admit that – even back then – the statement had been absolutely true. The same statement held true for Tony; he was happy with Ororo, but overjoyed by Pepper.

Logan had hoped that he could do _something_ with Pepper that Tony might see and be mildly jealous about – and Ororo seeing as well would be an added bonus. But so far Logan couldn't think of one damn thing that the two of them might have in common. She was always on her small computer or phone, presumably doing work – though it was just as likely that she was playing Tetris or Brick Breaker.

Still, her patience with Tony was always baffling. There wasn't a person on earth _that_ patient… Logan felt mildly stressed just _watching_ her deal with him! Then again, if she had a go-to stress relief of some kind…

Anyone could see that she was physically fit, which meant that she exercised a few times a week at the very least. Even though he'd just been in the Danger Room, he still felt like he could do a little exercising. If nothing else, he could learn more about her and learn about how he might be able to annoy Tony if they went to exercise together.

She looked up and caught Logan staring, but didn't seem upset or even surprised by it. Instead, she went back to whatever she was working on with a bored expression. "While I'm thankful that you kept in eye on Tony when you two were in the Danger Room," she said tonelessly, "if you want a reward for it, the most you're getting is a verbal thank you."

Logan blinked. "What makes you think that I'd want more than that?"

"What else am I supposed to think when a man is staring at me that intensely?" she replied.

"You have a lot of guys staring at you, I take it?"

"Why wouldn't they? I'm a decent looking woman."

He gave her a long look up and down. Grey-green eyes, strawberry blonde hair, freckles dusted across her nose and cheeks… She had a rare classic beauty, much more than simply decent.

He paused momentarily at her legs, which seemed _impossibly_ long. He was sure that legs and hips like hers drove most men wild, though he had to admit that he preferred Ororo's wider hips. He never once feared that he might break her in half when they –

He blinked hard. "Work like yours must be stressful," he said. "And I doubt that you take your frustration out on your boss."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "What makes you think I don't?"

Logan smirked at that. "What, physically abuse him?" She continued ticking away on her computer and Logan gave her an odd look. "Do you?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'd hardly call it abuse, but I've slapped him once or twice. Do you really think he doesn't deserve it?"

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose. They were getting _far_ off topic. "Don't you work out? Do you do karate or kick boxing or something?"

"I run."

Well _that_ was nice and simple. "You want to go for a run right now?"

She closed her computer and stared at him blankly. "How can you want to go for a run after all that training in the Danger Room?"

_To annoy Stark in the off chance that he sees us doing something together._ He shrugged. "I'm just bored, I guess."

She pursed her lips together. "Track or treadmill?"

"Doesn't matter. We have both."

She smirked. "Okay. Treadmill sounds nice. I'll go change and meet you downstairs."

She gathered her things and left the room with a purposeful stride. Logan nodded in approval and followed after her. Rounding a corner, he saw Tony watching after Pepper with a thoughtful expression. He glanced at Logan, and was – for once – _not_ smiling. Rather, his eyes were sharp and searching, almost as though he was suspicious.

That, in turn, made Logan smirk in triumph. He didn't even bother to be discreet. When he passed Tony, he threw the other man a wink as he disappeared around another corner. _Suck on _that_ for a while!_

Feeling empowered, he went down to the changing rooms and put on simple running shorts and a sleeveless shirt, meeting Pepper in the hall of the basement. While Logan still got occasionally turned around or lost, Pepper had only been in the basement once or twice – that he knew of – but she seemed to know her way around as well as Ororo or Xavier.

He led her to the gym and they got on the two side by side treadmills in silence. But after about two minutes of a slow run, she stared to ease up and ask Logan about himself. He told her as much of himself as he could as he ran on a treadmill next to hers. She listened intently, and was particularly fascinated with his dreams/memories rather than his skeleton or claws or healing factor.

In turn, Logan learned that Pepper loved her work because she loved being busy, that Tony wasn't such a bad guy – though she was probably biased – and that she had quite a temper and used meditation every once in a while to keep it in check. Annoyingly, she didn't give up much information about Stark's dislikes, but Logan was content enough just learning about her for the time being. Perhaps hanging out with Pepper didn't have to be all about revenge. Ororo seemed to have a lot of friends that were men, so why couldn't he have a few other friends that were women?

While she spoke – and she was very detailed when she did – Logan noticed that she was _never_ out of breath, despite the fact that both of them had been running at seven miles per hour for over half an hour. Ororo could certainly run like that. Ororo ran faster and longer, but she was a mutant, and she'd grown up in Africa.

Pepper was a human and the personal assistant of a rich man. Marathon runners could keep pace like she could, but they trained day after day for that kind of stamina. Again, he wondered if it was possible to be partially mutant. But, unlike Tony's chest piece, Pepper didn't have a unique scent or sound about her. And she didn't have any defining traits that could possibly be a mutation – unless extreme patience was considered a power.

After an hour, they called it quits. Logan was a little more tired than he had been at the start, but still felt fairly energized by the workout. Judging by the large smile that she wore, Pepper felt the same.

He _had_ to ask "Are you an athlete or something?" he asked.

She smiled as she got off the treadmill, wiping sweat from her forehead. "It keeps me in good shape," she answered with a modest shrug. "And, as I said, it relieves stress."

"You're sort of married to your work, aren't you?"

"You have _no_ idea," she replied.

Well, when he considered the fact that Pepper probably ran until she was no longer stressed, perhaps it wasn't so hard to believe that she was an athlete. Besides, running at an average marathon pace for an hour didn't make her superhuman. It made her an average marathon runner.

Still, it was interesting to him that a petite human woman that ticked away on a computer or phone all day for a living had that kind of strength and stamina. He grabbed two towels and tossed one to her, using his own to rub the back of his neck as they exited the gym.

"I don't think I've ever known a human with that much stamina," he commented. "I was waiting for you to get tired, but you didn't even seem to be out of breath."

She smiled and waved a hand dismissively. "That was nothing. We could've kept going."

"You think so? For how long?"

"Long enough to surprise even you," she said with a smirk.

They rounded a corner and saw that they hadn't been alone through their conversation. Tony and Ororo were waiting for them.

The look on Tony's face was absolutely priceless; his expression was mostly flat, but it was more than clear that he was straining to keep it that way. The corner of Ororo's mouth twitched up every few seconds, and she carefully avoided looking Logan or Pepper in the eye. While it was clear that Ororo was on the verge of hysterical laughter, Tony looked like he wanted to break something. A pencil, a vase, Logan's neck…

"Have fun?" Tony asked, his voice tight.

"You know, I think we did," Logan said, giving Tony another winning smile. "We just had a good, _hard_ workout, didn't we, Pepper? Now I know how she's able to keep up with you, Stark. In fact, I have to wonder how _you_ keep up with _her._ She is an _animal!_"

Tony's pulse was nearly roaring and his jaw tightened. Obviously he knew that nothing scandalous had happened, but the implication was unmistakable. And it made Tony uncomfortable, which was _exactly_ what Logan wanted. _Payback's a bitch ain't it, Stark?_

Logan stretched wide and rested his arm around Pepper's shoulders, smiling down at her as though he didn't notice Ororo or Tony were even alive. "It's been fun Pepper, but I think I'll step outside for a smoke."

He nodded to her as he left, again not sparing Ororo or Tony a second glance. Not two seconds after he rounded the corner, he heard snorts and laughs of hysteria bouncing off the walls of the basement. Not surprisingly, Tony's obnoxious laugh was absent. That, in turn, made Logan laugh in delight.

Making his way outside, he lit a cigar and puffed at it idly as he watched an intense game of soccer between the guys and the girls. He was feeling quite smug about his small victory, until Tony appeared beside him, wearing the same far off expression and holding a glass filled with what smelled like scotch.

They stood in silence for a few minutes before Tony finally spoke. "You're a bit of an asshole, huh?"

"Same to you," Logan responded without pause.

He took a long drag of his cigar just as Tony took a swig of his scotch. Logan couldn't help but smirk though, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Tony was too. As annoying as Tony could be, it seemed that they weren't all that different. Logan wasn't willing to let the guy ride his bike or anything, but maybe he didn't have to hate that Tony breathed the same air as he did.

"That was pretty clever, though," Tony commented. "Making a workout sound like a _workout_."

Logan shrugged. "In my defense, I didn't know that you were around the corner until we actually saw you. You humans all smell the same."

Tony frowned in confusion before shrugging it off. "If you insist." He paused to down the rest of his scotch just as Logan finished his cigar. "Call it even?" he asked, offering his hand to shake.

Logan looked him up and down before giving Tony a curt nod, ignoring his offered hand. "Yeah, why not."


	70. Contender

And now... The drama we've all been waiting for... Enjoy!

* * *

Logan and Tony made their way inside the house together; Logan to find something to eat and Tony to… do whatever the hell it was that he did. Hell if he knew or even cared.

But Logan paused as he entered the kitchen, feeling that familiar but unexplainable tug in his chest whenever Ororo seemed to be calling out to him. Frowning thoughtfully, he went instead into the living room with Tony. It was empty of students – which was odd for this time of day – but he soon saw why.

Ororo was sitting in an armchair, her arms crossed in front of her as she stared at a man that was kneeling on the floor in front of her. He fit the description of tall, dark and handsome to a tee. He wore an expensive and nice looking suit and also had a cane that was made of what appeared to be polished ebony. Though it was blatantly obvious that the cane was just for appearance's sake. He was kneeling, but Logan could tell that the stranger was at least a head taller than him, and he looked more muscular than Logan too.

He also had a powerful scent about him. Logan could put an exact name to the scent, but there was something undeniably… feline about it.

But what his eyes finally focused on was Ororo. She sat rigid in the chair, her mouth set in a scowl and her eyes colder than ice as she stared down at the man. She looked like a queen itching to hand out a death sentence. Something about the scene rubbed Logan the wrong way, and he cleared his throat, announcing his presence.

The man turned to him and gave Logan a warm smile. Smoothly standing to his full height and strolling across the room – again, with a grace that seemed reminiscent of a cat – the man offered his hand to shake and uttered five words that shook Logan like nothing else in the world could: "Hello, my name is T'Challa."

His accent was heavy, but his English was flawless. _Obviously a man that travels a lot._ Logan stared at his offered hand for a few seconds before narrowing his eyes at the taller man.

"Perhaps I should take that to mean that you have heard of me," T'Challa said, letting his hand drop and throwing Ororo a pointed look.

Logan opened his mouth to suggest not _thinking_ about looking at her that way, but Ororo didn't need a defender. "Don't give me that look," she snapped. "I only tell my friends the truth. It's not my fault that they don't like you before they even meet you."

"That is because they only know of my faults."

She rolled her eyes. "_That _must be it. You're right. I should've mentioned your never-failing devotion and the numerous sacrifices that you've made for me."

He sighed heavily. "I wish you would not condemn me for the one mistake that I have continually attempted to atone for."

"You think I want _gifts_ as an apology for ripping my goddamn heart out!" A gentle breeze blew across the room. The hairs on the back of Logan's neck stood on end and Tony visibly shivered.

"I have tried to apologize – "

"And you've never once meant it. Nor do you mean it now. Get out."

"Ro, please! All I want is a chance."

"You've had a chance. Several, in fact. _Get out!_"

"At the very least I want your friendship back," he continued, on his knees again. "Do you not remember how close you and I used to be? Do you not miss that camaraderie we used to share?"

Ororo huffed and glanced away from him. Logan's heart jumped into his throat. She wasn't serious, was she? Why didn't she tell him that she didn't miss it at all? He could feel an argument coming on as soon as _this_ crisis was averted…

"King T'Challa." All three men and Ororo turned to the door. Leaning against the frame, looking cool as a cucumber, was Scott. Logan heard a low growl in the back of T'Challa's throat. "I apologize for not rolling out the red carpet. When are you leaving?"

T'Challa gave him a smug smirk. "I have only just arrived."

"I give a frog's fat ass when you got here," he snapped. "I want to know when you're leaving."

"He's leaving right now," Ororo replied.

T'Challa hardly flinched under the murderous glares. "I will be here for four days," he said patiently, turning to address her. "I am afraid that was all the time that my work permitted."

"Well now you can save those extra days up for something more important."

"What could be more important than you?"

"SO many things, apparently."

"You used to say that I never had any time for you, yet here I am. I have made time."

"Then excuse me for not being overjoyed that you've managed to devote four whole days to me."

"And I do intend to devote them to you, Ro."

_Like hell_, Logan nearly snarled. Instead, he said, "I'm sure she appreciates the personal sacrifice, bub, but you're not staying here."

T'Challa turned to Logan, his sharp eyes suspicious. "I believe she is perfectly capable of speaking for herself, and I do not believe that it is your decision as to whether or not I stay."

"She has spoken for herself," Tony said sharply. "She's told you at least three times that she wants you to leave. If it's so much trouble for you I'm sure we could help you find the door…"

"Do not make threats to me, human," he spat.

"Don't call him a human like he's a fucking virus," Ororo snapped. And then, to everyone's surprise, she rounded on Tony. "And don't you threaten him. He knows where the door is."

Tony had never looked more confused. "Then why isn't he leaving?"

T'Challa gave the three men a false smile. "Because she does not want me to. She speaks her heart through her eyes. All else that she says does not matter unless I can see the truth of it in her eyes."

"What I'm saying matters to me," she hissed. "Leave. _NOW!_"

He closed his eyes and his head fell solemnly. "At least let me present you with this."

She scowled. "I told you, I don't want a damn thing that you think you have to offer – " She froze, staring at what he was holding out to her. "My mother's crown," she whispered in awe, taking the offered gift and examining it.

It was certainly a unique looking crown. Shiny and jet black, Logan guessed that it was made out of polished ebony. Two spikes looked as though they were made to frame the face and hold the crown in place. Two more were above those, and much shorter. At the top in the center was a hollow circle. Logan remembered being told that Ororo's mother had been a tribal princess, and the crown certainly seemed fit for one.

Her eyes wide, Ororo whispered something in a different language, and T'Challa nodded slowly to her, murmuring something back. She looked up at T'Challa and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'll give you a chance," she said slowly. "But this is absolutely your last shot. And you're not staying here. You're not coming back here. Ever. I'll call you tomorrow. Get out."

She stood, holding the crown carefully, and made her way up the stairs without looking back, leaving the four men alone in the room together. Logan stood completely still. He feared that movement of any kind might prompt him to decapitate T'Challa. Scott and Tony stood just as rigid.

T'Challa stood to his full height and faced his three enemies. Clearing his throat, he addressed them without fear or discomfort. "I am sure that each of you has heard the stories that she tells about our history," he began. "And I am sure that you already have feelings about me – "

"Does bile count," Tony asked snidely.

T'Challa gave Tony a false smile. "Let us be honest; I am not sure that she would appreciate being defended when she is quite capable of doing so on her own."

Logan's jaw tightened. "I'll bet she appreciates it as much as not being listened to."

"I know her well enough to know what she needs. And I know that she does not need any of you, nor the bullshit that you poison her mind with."

"Poison?" Scott said thoughtfully. "That's a new theory, isn't it?"

T'Challa's gaze was absolutely black as he stared at Scott. "You are most at fault, Cyclops. You have kept her here – "

"Against her will?" he asked innocently, nodding towards the now vacant staircase. "For nine years? I'm sorry, but have you _met_ Ororo Munroe? Do you really think she'd tolerate being held against her will for nine _days?_"

"There are ways to tame any woman. Even her."

Logan heard only white noise roaring in his ears as his vision turned scarlet. The one thing he did hear was a simple thought, repeating itself in his mind until he was no longer capable of coherent thought at all:

_**FUCK** THAT!_

His claws jumped out of his clenched fists, and he tried to lunge at T'Challa. Four hands managed to keep him back, but he felt two bodies lurch forward as he tried to throw himself at T'Challa. Scott was in his ear, muttering nonsense that Logan didn't want to hear. It was only when he uttered Ororo's name that Logan snapped out of his rage.

"You think she'll be happy to hear that you cut down one of her friends?"

Trembling from rage, Logan stood his ground with tense muscles. Scott had a point. As much as he was loathe to admit it, Ororo still seemed to consider T'Challa to be one of her friends. Enough to give him another chance with her. _DAMMIT!_

Still quite unafraid, T'Challa eyed Logan's claws with interest before a wicked smirk settled itself on his handsome features. "You are her newest toy, are you not?" he muttered. "You know, I used to carry a pocketknife with me at all times. What woman would not enjoy a man that can rip her clothing off in the blink of an eye?"

So many things happened in the span of just a few seconds. A set of hands released Logan, but he was too infuriated to know if it had been Tony or Scott that had let him go. He lunged forward, but a flash of red blinded him before he could reach T'Challa and tear him apart. Logan felt a sharp pain in his back and was thrown across the room in half a second.

Gasping for air that had been knocked out of his lungs, Logan found that his back had been embedded in the drywall. He glared across the room and saw only Scott, his hands on his glasses. Coughing and sputtering prompted Logan to look to his left, and he saw that T'Challa and Tony were in much the same position that he himself was in.

He twisted his body this way and that until he wiggled out of the wall and dusted himself off. Turning to Tony, Logan grabbed his wrist and gave him a rough tug. Tony nearly slipped and fell on his ass, but Logan reached out and grabbed his shoulder, standing him upright before letting the slightly dizzy human go.

He simply glared at T'Challa, seriously debating whether or not to push him farther in or possibly through. But he didn't have to debate for long.

Scott stormed up to T'Challa and grabbed a fist full of his shirt, roughly yanking him out of the wall. The taller man staggered for only a moment, but Scott gripped his upper arm and led him to the front door. "Come in here again and, I swear to God, I won't stop either or them. I'll join them."

Shoving the Black Panther out the door and slamming it behind him, Scott turned to Tony and Logan, taking a deep breath. "Brace yourselves," he said seriously. "It's going to be a long four days."


	71. Evidence

Once again, major thanks to SuniGyrl, who helped me IMMENSELY!

* * *

"He's playing the role," Tony declared with a frown. It was about the fourth or fifth time he'd said it, and both Logan and Scott were sick of hearing him say it.

"You don't have to convince me," Scott said. "I've had more than one scuffle with him. That's one of the reasons why Storm told him never to come here again."

"I don't get how she _ever_ could've been attracted to an ass like that in the first place," Tony said, shaking his head. "More importantly, why the hell didn't she kick him to the curb after that scene he made?"

Logan was _still_ trying to figure that out. "She didn't see the scene he made," he said quietly.

"She must've seen the evidence of it on her way out this morning," Tony insisted. "It's not like that happened because we were jerking off."

"Lovely image," Pepper said flatly.

"Well, it's true."

It _was_ true. For that reason, Logan kept silent as he paced the length of the living room. He was attempting to cool his white hot temper, but pacing sure as hell wasn't helping to loosen his muscles. Every muscle he possessed was tensed and ready to spring at _something_.

Ororo had been up in her room all night, and her door had been firmly locked. Not that a locked door was any match for Logan's claws or even a swift kick, but part of him _really_ hadn't wanted to speak to her after the events of the day before. He was waging his own private war within, and something told him that he wasn't quite ready to talk to her about this yet.

He'd told himself repeatedly that Ororo was only humoring T'Challa because she wanted her friend back, but he didn't believe it. Not even when Marie, Lee, and Kitty had echoed those very thoughts.

Apparently, Kitty had been eavesdropping and all three girls had immediately taken Logan's side, appalled at how Ororo had 'left him hanging'. While he was grateful for the support, it wasn't very helpful. How the hell was he supposed to compete with the man that Ororo had grown up with? Her first love… the man that she must always wonder about…

_What kind of idiot would _ever _hope to compete with that?_

And yet, under that heavy feeling of defeat was anger, directed at Ororo. What the hell gave her the right to treat him like this? To blatantly ignore the existence of their relationship, despite the fact that they'd never formally defined it. To act like she cared nothing at all for him. Like she'd _never_ cared! He wasn't her goddamn doll!

_"__You must be her newest toy."_

Logan stopped mid-stride, closing his eyes tightly and growling. Lord help him, blood would be spilled if he ever caught sight of that man again…

"You okay?" Tony asked, reaching out to him.

"Don't touch me with that hand unless you want to lose it," Logan said quietly. Tony slowly pulled his hand back and inched away from Logan, as though a sudden movement might startle him. He was probably right. "I'm tense. Don't take it personally."

Tony nodded. "We'll get that asshole. We just have to figure out how."

"What is there to _get_, Stark?" Scott snapped. "You can't convince Ororo to hate T'Challa based on the fact that he's an asshole. She already knows that."

"Then why did she go out with him for the day?"

"If I knew the answer to that, I'd be talking to _her_ right now."

Pepper, who'd tried to keep silent for most of the conversation, sighed. "There's obviously something that we're not seeing," she said. "Something about this man that only Ororo can see. She's known him for years longer than all of you have, and knows so much more about him. Maybe all that quick scuffle was just – to put it bluntly – a dick measuring contest."

Tony shook his head slowly. "It was more than just that. I can smell it." He tapped his nose for emphasis. "I've been that guy before; I've promised to do one thing, only to turn around and do another. I've also manipulated people from every single angle until I got what I wanted from them."

"Like a romp between the sheets?" she asked tightly

He sighed heavily. "Among other things. I've also had to do it to get information, to get the work done that otherwise would've been ignored… The point is, you can't bullshit and bullshitter. He wants something from her. That's why he pulled out that African crown or whatever when she was just about ready to physically throw him out."

That gave Logan pause. If anyone knew how to manipulate Ororo's emotions, it would be T'Challa. He had, after all, known her since her childhood. He was also the reason for all that self doubt that she seemed unable to rid herself of. And she had seemed to be nearing her breaking point when he'd whipped out that crown. Maybe Stark was onto something.

"What would he want from her?"

Tony looked up at Logan and shrugged. "How the hell should I know? I just got here a week ago."

_Good point._

"Maybe," Pepper began slowly and thoughtfully, "he wants her to _think_ that he just wants to be friends again. But really, he's trying to get her to love him again."

Tony nodded. "It's possible…"

"You hit the nail on the head, Pepper," Scott said boredly. "I'll bet that's exactly what he wants. Have fun trying to prove it. The man covers his tracks like a fucking mafia king."

"No one is _that_ good," Tony said.

Scott pointed to the door. "Prove me wrong."

Sighing heavily, Tony stood and leaned against a heavy bookshelf, hitting the back of his head against it. But after a few taps he winced and stopped. "If it's not a headboard, it's just not worth it," he muttered to himself as he scratched his chin thoughtfully.

They sat in silence for several minutes before Tony gasped. Logan watched him, but the other man said nothing. His eyes, however, shifted rapidly, suggesting that he was thinking at the speed of light. He pulled out his phone and pressed the screen before holding it to his ear. It hardly rang before someone on the other end picked up.

"Jarvis, I have a job for you. I want you to run a search on a man named T'Challa. … How the hell should I know how to spell it? Sound it out or something. … You know I don't like statistics…"

"T-apostrophe-C-H-A-L-L-A," Scott said boredly. "If it helps, he's the king of a country called Wakanda. W-A-K-A-N-D-A."

Tony repeated the message and nodded in satisfaction. "Got his number? Okay, use GPS to get a lock on his current location. … Manhattan? Perfect, then that's the right guy. Now, look up his recent phone activity. There should be data on the time zones that he's crossed, which will give us a specific time frame to look at."

Logan listened curiously, mildly interested as to who this Jarvis was. He sure worked well, and fast. _Perk of working for a genius billionaire,_ he figured. He briefly wondered if what Tony was doing was illegal, but decided that it didn't matter. Killing T'Challa was certainly illegal, but if his only opportunity to do it was in broad daylight in the middle of Central Park, he'd fucking do it.

"Okay, see if there are any specific call patterns. The times that he's making calls, the numbers that he's calling, the locations of the calls… anything."

"What exactly are you doing, Stark?" Scott asked curiously.

Tony shook his head and put his phone on speaker. _"It seems here,"_ a well spoken man on the other end said, _"that he has made a few calls to the same number. Mostly he's been texting this number, with what I would interpret to be updates on the status of a mission."_

"Since he's been here?" Tony clarified.

_"Yes."_

Tony hunched over, frowning deeply. "Okay, I have an idea. Jarvis, I want you to hack into the mobile phone that T'Challa's communicating with. Reroute that number to mine and temporarily disconnect that phone. Tell me when you've done that."

The pause that followed was all of twenty seconds before Jarvis said, _"It's done, sir."_

"Goddamn," Logan muttered to himself. Too bad the X-Men didn't have someone like that on their team. "That guy works fast."

"That guy is actually my computer," Tony told Logan before turning back to his phone. "Good. Now, send me a few of the texts that've gone back and forth between them."

A few seconds more and Tony's phone vibrated in his hand. He pressed a few places on the screen of his phone and frowned. "What the hell is this?"

_"The texts, sir."_

Tony rubbed one eye in irritation. "What _language,_ smartass?"

_"Swahili. I believe Ms. Potts speaks it fluently."_

"I do," she said, snatching the phone away and scanning rapidly. "I think I know what you're thinking, too," she told Tony.

Tony nodded. "I don't doubt that you do. Do what you do best. Jarvis, you can hang up. I'll text you to let you know when to revert the numbers back to their original phones."

_"Very good, sir."_

"Thank you, sweetheart." A loud click signaled the end of the connection and Tony turned to Scott and Logan while Pepper continued ticking away on the phone. "My plan is this," he began. "We get _him_ to tell _us_ what he's doing. Pepper is going to pull the information that we want from him and there's our direct proof to show to Ororo that T'Challa is a manipulative bastard."

"That's assuming that he _is_ a manipulative bastard," Pepper muttered, not looking up from her task. "All this plotting might be for nothing. You have to consider the possibility that he might just be a jerk."

"Pepper, I _know_ that he's up to something. I told you, I've been that guy before, as loathe as I am to admit it."

"There's no such thing as a sinner without a future," she mumbled.

That boded well for Tony, but what about T'Challa? Logan raked his fingers through his hair. He was completely and utterly out of his element this time. As much as he hated sitting back and waiting for something to happen, that's exactly what he had to do in this instance.

But fate seemed to be smiling on him this time. The phone in Pepper's hands vibrated and she opened the text. She muttered in what Logan assumed had to be Swahili and nodded to herself. "I asked him how much longer this process would take, and he said that everything is moving along smoothly."

She began pressing the screen again and sent away another text. The wait for the next reply was a bit longer, but then, so was the reply. "I asked him if there were any foreseeable complications, and he said 'she's coming around, slowly but surely. It's only a matter of time before she places her full trust in me once again'."

Logan felt his temper rising, but breathed deeply in an effort to calm himself. _He could just be a jerk. He could just be a jerk._ Logan didn't buy that for even a second, but chanting it kept him from impaling the nearest object.

The phone buzzed again and Logan noticed that he'd involuntarily crept closer to Pepper. He was now staring over her shoulder, staring at a text typed in a language that he couldn't read. Pepper bent over the short message for much too long before sighing heavily. "I asked if he expected her to cooperate," she reported heavily. "And he said that it doesn't matter, because she'll be on the flight back with him in three days."

Scott's fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white. Logan could actually hear his bones straining. He really was malnourished. "Keep squeezing and that hand will break," Logan warned.

"Then I'll strangle him with my _other_ hand," he replied tightly.

The phone buzzed again and Pepper paused again, chewing on her bottom lip. "You're sure you want to hear all of this? I don't want to feel like I had a hand in this man's murder."

"You won't," Tony snapped. "You're fine. Just read it."

Her apologetic gaze settled on Logan as she continued. "I asked him if he expected full cooperation once she got here (here, as in, Wakanda) and his reply was this; 'I don't shoot blanks. One time is all it'll take for her to become pregnant. She would never deny her child its father, and for that reason, she will comply with all my wishes. In nine months time, we will have an heir worthy of my throne. My strength and her resolve will make for a healthy child and a proper ruler'."

Scott jumped to his feet and began pacing, his feet loudly slapping the ground and possibly offering him distraction from his own raging temper.

Logan… felt like he was in the twilight zone. Never in his life had he felt such anger – that he could recall. It was so powerful that it held him immobile. He was unable to even speak. His vision wasn't red, but rather, everything seemed just a little bit brighter and in sharp focus. And, strange as it was, he somehow felt that he could _hear_ the thick silence.

Pepper sent off what she promised would be the last message, and she received a quick reply. "I asked him if it would really be that easy, and he said 'I know Ororo Munroe like the back of my hand. Nothing about this will be difficult'."

Tony slowly took the phone from Pepper and sent off another message, probably to Jarvis. They sat in silence for what seemed to be hours, though it was likely that it had only been five minutes. "That must be why he gave her the crown," Pepper said finally. "To remind her that she's royalty and to get her used to the idea."

"I'll rip his throat out," Logan said, his voice surprisingly calm. He wouldn't only rip his throat out. After that he'd reach down and begin the long and slow process of turning him – completely and _very_ literally – inside out. If Logan had to give up some of his own blood to keep T'Challa alive for the process, he was willing to make that sacrifice…

Scott finally stopped pacing and glared hard at Logan. "Get in line," he said, making his way to the front door.


	72. Exposed

Thank you so much to The Lanka and SuniGyrl for all the little imperfections you helped me smooth out! You guys are awesome!

* * *

Logan, Scott, and Tony had been waiting just outside the front door of the mansion for only an hour and a half before a shiny black car pulled up and T'Challa and Ororo got out. Scott had insisted that T'Challa – thinking himself to be a gentleman – would insist on driving Ororo to the mansion to ensure her 'safe return'.

"Bullshit," Tony had scoffed. Logan had thought so too, though he hadn't vocalized it. But, in the back of his mind, he had to admit that he would've said bullshit to her letting T'Challa have another chance – whatever _that_ was supposed to mean.

Seeing them step out of the car, it seemed that Scott had been right.

She gave a tired sigh as she caught sight of the three men and shook her head as she approached them. "What are you all doing? I swear, if you try to pick a fight…"

Tony stepped up to her and held up his phone. "You can't trust him."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "Is that so?"

"We caught him – "

"Shut up, Tony," she snapped. "I've been with him all day. You didn't catch _anything_!"

Scott shook his head, clicking his tongue in disapproval. "It really amazes me that you'd choose to listen to all T'Challa's bullshit, but when we even _suggest_ that something's wrong with him, _we're_ the assholes."

"So you're saying that I'm wrong about him?"

"I'm saying that your first instinct, which was to kick him out, was the right one."

Logan stepped forward and took her hands, turning her towards him. "We're not saying that you're stupid. Anyone can be fooled by someone that they want to trust…"

Her mouth twisted into a skeptical frown. "And, with that statement in mind, you want _me_ to trust _you?_"

He scowled at that. "What reason have I given you _not_ to trust me?!"

She ripped her hands out of his grasp and stepped back from the three men. "Stop this! Tony, you don't know him at all! How can you make accusations about someone based on a two minute pissing contest? And Scott, screw you, because you've been an absolute jackass to me ever since Jean died. I know you loved her. I loved her too, but that's no reason to take it out on me." She rounded on Logan, her eyes bright. "And _you_! You are absolutely _suffocating_! You're obnoxiously jealous of _any_ man that gives me even a lingering stare! Are you really so self conscious that you think I'll leave with the first decent looking man that glances in my direction?!"

Logan's lip curled up in a sneer. "What right do you have to judge me? You had a complete and utter mental breakdown and nearly consumed the continent with a storm because of your own goddamn insecurities!!"

She threw her arms in the air, shaking her head. "You know what? Fuck _all of you!_ I've had it! You can all go to _hell!!_"

She angrily stomped into the house and out of sight, and Pepper – who'd been quietly observing off to the side – quietly followed behind her, holding Tony's phone. As angry as Logan was with Ororo, he didn't want her to fall for T'Challa's trick. They'd obviously have some things to talk about later, but for the moment she just needed to know what he'd said about her and make up her own mind.

T'Challa, in the meantime, gave all three men a smug look as he shook his head. "This would undoubtedly be more humorous if I knew what I was being accused of."

Tony shook his head in disgust. "Right. _This_ is the time for a good laugh."

"It seems to be. I know that look that she just gave all of you. She has washed her hands of dealing with you commoners."

"I'll bet you _do_ know that look," Scott growled, cracking his knuckles. "And yet she somehow managed to forgive you. But when she sees why you're _really_ here, you'll be lucky if she doesn't carry your ass back to Africa in a tornado!"

The scent of rainforest drifted into Logan's lungs and he turned to see Ororo standing just outside the door, staring at them all with a calm expression. Much too calm. _Deadly_ calm. And she was holding Tony's phone in a white knuckled grip. She knew.

"What is this," she asked quietly, holding up the phone.

"It appears to be a cell phone," he answered after a second of hesitation.

She held the screen of the phone up to her eye level and began rapidly speaking Swahili. Logan watched T'Challa's expression and felt a smug smirk tugging at his lips as the other man's dark complexion paled slightly. When she finished speaking, she simply stared at him with an expression that could make a man wonder – quite seriously – if he was about to die.

"I should've listened to them, shouldn't I?" she asked quietly. "From the very beginning. But I decided to trust you. I took a chance because I missed my best friend. But I guess I should've listened to my gut."

"Ro, just listen to me for a mo – " T'Challa's head jerked to the side and a gash appeared above his left eye. If not for his sharp eye, Logan would've missed the shiny object that had flown past his eyes at the speed of light. Ororo, with deadly aim, had thrown Tony's phone at T'Challa.

Her eyes frost white, Ororo raised herself only a few inches off the ground and hovered as she glared at him. The wind didn't even pick up. "Why would I need to listen to anything?" she asked, still in an almost detached tone. "Thoroughbreds don't speak."

"You're not a horse…"

"Yet you treat me like one, judging me by the worth of my _pedigree!_" She was in front of him in an instant and kicked him square in the chest. A thunderclap boomed just above them, almost muffling the sound of a rib snapping. Three strikes of lightning touched down around them and the sky darkened to nearly black. "I am _sick_ of you," she hissed as the wind picked up. "Breaking my heart once isn't enough, is it? _Nothing_ I do has _ever_ been enough for you! But I don't need your approval or crave your attention _anymore!_ I thought maybe we could try to be friends again, but _screw you!!_ Never – _NEVER_ – come back here **_EVER_** again!!"

"Ro – "

She raised her leg to strike him again, and he raised his hand in return. Without considering that he might be trying to block Ororo from hitting him again, Logan lunged at him with his claws fully extended. There was no way in _hell_ that Logan was going to let him lay his hands on Ororo.

T'Challa ducked and dodged well enough, narrowly avoiding injuries that would do him serious damage. Logan might've had an easier time if Scott wasn't right beside him, trading blow for blow with T'Challa. It only served to make impaling him more difficult without injuring Scott.

But he didn't have long to consider how best to avoid hurting Scott, because the air around them suddenly got thicker and a gust of wind propelled all three men in separate directions. Logan landed on his hands and knees ten feet away, Scott tumbled in a heap near Ororo's feet, and T'Challa flew closer to the house. He managed to land on his feet, but stumbled in an attempt to keep upright. His arms spread out, wildly grabbing for anything within his reach that might steady him.

What happened to be within reach was Pepper.

His hands, now looking like half-transformed panther claws, buried into her soft flesh and two sickening snaps rang loud and clear. Sounds that could only be her shoulder and elbow dislocating.

She staggered and gasped, but didn't cry out. Blinking hard, she simply stood there, staring at nothing and trembling. As heavy as T'Challa was, her dislocated joints probably weren't her only injuries. She'd likely broken something and had torn muscles, and the punctures from his claws weren't remotely shallow. She looked like she was already going into shock from the sheer pain.

Tony, who'd stayed away from Logan and Scott's violent fight, gave a furious cry and aimed a flat palm at T'Challa. He was wearing some kind of red glove with a glowing circle in the middle – he'd once called it a repulsor or something like that. It brightened briefly before shooting a gust of what seemed to be pure pressure at T'Challa, who went flying through the air back in Ororo's direction. She calmly moved out of his path and he landed hard on his own shoulder, likely dislocating it and breaking his collarbone.

Tony, Scott, and even Logan made another dive for T'Challa, but Ororo shocked all four men. Scott and Tony simply crumbled to the ground, Logan's shock was just enough to freeze him for a moment, but T'Challa jerked violently and cried out. "Enough," she said calmly, yet her voice somehow carried like thunder. She reached down and grabbed T'Challa by his bad shoulder, gripping so hard that her fingers nearly broke through the fabric and skin. She lifted him at least a foot off the ground with that one hand, yet it didn't look like it took any effort for her.

He howled in agony, but her expression remained impassive. "Not all goddesses are as forgiving as I am," she told him, her voice dark and her accent thicker in her fury. "You would do well to remember that the next time you consider showing your face to me." She jerked her head in the direction of Logan, Scott, and Tony. "I may even join the wolves that I throw you to."

She dropped him to the ground and gave him a rough kick in the direction of his car, which he scrambled into and sped off in. Without a second glance at anyone, Ororo took to the skies, disappearing from sight in an instant.

Scott mumbled something about making sure that T'Challa got on a plane as he went back into the mansion and, presumably, to the garage. Logan was right on his heels, but Scott spun around and held out a hand to stop him. "No."

Logan lifted an eyebrow. "No?" _Like hell_…

"No," Scott repeated. "You certainly have the stealth to keep to the shadows, but I honestly don't know that I can trust you not to run him off a cliff on his way to an airport."

Logan growled in annoyance. Just because he let his temper get out of control sometimes, that didn't mean that he wasn't capable of keeping it in check when he needed to. And as far as running T'Challa off a cliff…

He could make it look like an accident...

"Besides," Scott continued, pointing behind him, "there's someone that needs your help a lot more."

Logan looked in the direction he was pointing and saw Tony holding Pepper in a protective but gentle embrace, fretting over her arm as she cried and trembled, her face buried in the crook of his shoulder and her injured arm hanging limply. He nodded and Scott disappeared inside the house. Logan wasn't far behind, leading Pepper and Tony inside and to the medical bay in the basement.

He instructed her to lie down on her back on the table as he rummaged through the cabinets in search or morphine and a few syringes.

After he'd discovered that his blood truly could heal others, he'd let Ororo draw a pint of his blood to store in case of emergencies. But they'd discovered that after a few days – even when stored in ideal conditions – the healing property in his blood disappeared, and it was just ordinary blood.

If he wanted to actually heal someone, he'd have to cut himself on the spot and pour his blood into the open wound. Or – in Pepper's case, since her major injuries didn't have an open wound – he'd have to draw his blood and inject her.

But first he'd have to reset her shoulder and elbow. His blood could certainly heal that on its own, but it would be slower and more painful for her that way. Finally locating a vial of morphine, Logan shook it as he got a syringe and extracted a healthy amount.

Tony, who was an absolute wreck, paced back and forth around her, glancing death at Logan as if to tell him to hurry the hell up. But he said nothing, because even he realized that Logan wasn't moving slowly.

He gave Pepper the morphine and tossed the syringe away as he got another, placing a tourniquet on his bicep and drawing half a milliliter of his blood.

Logan motioned for Tony to get on Pepper's good side as he positioned himself on the side of her bad arm. "Hold her still," Logan told him firmly before bending down to Pepper. "This is going to hurt like hell itself, Pepper. Try your best not to move."

"Okay," she whimpered, nodding and bracing herself. When she stopped moving completely, Logan carefully studied the position of her arm, deciding the quickest way to twist both joints back into place. Placing the blood filled syringe in his mouth, Logan gave her forearm a firm jerk, and her elbow popped back into place. She tried to arch her back off the tale, but Tony threw his entire weight across her stomach to keep her in place. She let out a deafening shriek of pain and panic, suddenly forgetting that they were trying to help her.

Logan had anticipated that, which was why he'd made sure he knew the quickest way to reset her shoulder and elbow. He grabbed her upper arm and gave it a rough tug, popping her shoulder back into its socket. He dropped the syringe into his hand and injected half of the blood into her elbow and half into her shoulder.

Her loud cries of pain slowly became quiet sobs until she was completely silent, wiping away tears with her good arm. "Sorry," she mumbled.

Logan shook his head as he disposed of the syringe. Despite how level headed Pepper was, he'd expected such a reaction. Intense pain could make a person forget the difference between helping and hurting.

"Do I need to take her to a hospital?" Tony asked, glancing over her arm but too afraid to touch it. "To get a cast or anything?"

"I didn't inject her with more painkillers. I injected her with my blood."

Pepper gingerly sat up and stared at him in confusion. "Is that safe? You don't know my blood type..."

"I don't have to," Logan said. "My blood type is O Negative."

"Universal donor," she muttered.

"My blood also has healing properties in it, which is why I heal when I get injuries. I reset your joints first because it would've been more painful to just inject you, but giving you the blood healed any potentially torn muscles or nerve damage that you would've otherwise had. Considering the fact that you went into shock and that he damn near ripped your arm off, I'm guessing the damage was extensive."

Tony's eyes widened as he lightly touched her arm. The punctures in her arm slowly shriveled up until only smooth, pale skin was left. "So… she's completely healed?"

Logan nodded. "Your arm might feel stiff for ten minutes or so, but you're good as new."

"Thank you," she told him gratefully. Logan nodded again in response and pointed at Tony. "You know how to find people, right?"

Tony shrugged in mild confusion. "Yeah, I guess so. Mostly I have Jarvis get information like that."

"Tell him to find out where Ororo is."

Tony wasn't hesitant in the least when he pulled Pepper's cell phone out of her pocket and began dialing. "Jarvis? … Another favor, darling; I need you to locate Ororo N'Dare Munroe. … Yes, that's her." After a few long moments of scratching his goatee impatiently, Tony nodded. "Thank you, Jarvis." He hung up and looked at Logan. "It looks like she left all of her personal belongings that we could track her with here at the mansion. But Jarvis knows Ororo's powers and calculated that she's most likely near Glen Cove. Radars indicated weather patterns moving too quickly to be natural and the area with the highest concentrated intensity is somewhere in there."

Logan nodded as he made his way out of the medical bay. Ororo had gone off to clear her head. If she was in the very middle of an intense storm all the way in Glen Cove, there was no way in hell he'd be able to even reach her. All Logan could do was wait for her to get back. He _hated_ waiting, but he'd just have to be patient. She'd come back when she was ready to.

"She was angry."

Frowning, Logan turned around and saw Pepper catching up with him. "Huh?"

"Ororo. She was angry. Probably at all of you for being right about T'Challa. And she was definitely angry at herself for knowing that he was no good but trusting him anyway…"

So she was referring to the verbal lashing that he'd received from her about being suffocating. He'd put _that_ glorious moment out of his mind… "It doesn't matter," he said finally.

"It _does_ matter. If she hadn't had any doubts about him at all then she would've looked at our evidence without a moment's hesitation. The fact that she refused and even lashed out means that she was thinking – if only in the back of her mind – that he was untrustworthy too. Obviously she didn't want to believe it."

"What makes you think you know her so well?"

"I don't really have to know her. I know how the female mind works. And this past week I've seen how deeply she cares about you." Logan decided that there was no harm in thinking on that until she came back. Pepper offered him an encouraging smile. "Don't worry. She'll see that you were just trying to protect her." With that, she turned and went the other way down the gleaming halls, likely to Tony.

Logan continued on his own way until he finally made it to his room. He shut the door, locked it, and lay on his bed, emotionally spent. A loud crack of thunder prompted him to look out the window. It was three in the afternoon, and the sky outside was black as pitch. Heavy raindrops hit the window and Logan listened to Ororo's anguish as he waited for her - and, possibly, the fate of their relationship.


	73. Regression

Okay. So… you totally don't know how much it pains me to do this, but I have to disappear AGAIN!! Remember that bestest friend that lives in Arizona WAAAAAY back from Chapter 8? (Good ol' days, yeah?) Well, this time she's coming to visit me in Minnesota! For two whole weeks!! And then I'm going back with her to Arizona!!! FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS!!!! I'll be honest and say that I'm not sure what I will and won't be able to crank out in the MONTH that I'll be with my friend (conquering the world and getting tattoos is time consuming, after all) but I can absolutely promise that when I get back, it's on like Donkey Kong! We're getting SOOO close to 'The Last Stand', and I've got quite a bit of that already started. That OBVIOUSLY means the return of bi-weekly updates! I'm thinking Mondays and Thursdays, but we'll see.

Anywho, that's enough of my babble! Thank you all so much for your patience and for sticking with the story for this long (SEVENTY-THREE CHAPTERS!!!) and I'll see ya when I get back!

And, as always, thank you a hundred million times to The Lanka and Sunigyrl for your help in making this chapter super awesome!

* * *

Logan lost track of time as he waited for Ororo to return. An hour turned into two, which turned into four… He'd stopped looking at the clock a long time ago and had tried to just keep his mind blank. The less he thought about the events of the afternoon, the calmer he stayed.

He would've liked to go for a motorcycle ride to release just a little tension, but Ororo's current mood didn't make for ideal weather conditions. The rain hadn't let up once, and Logan idly wondered if there was any flooding because of it. Maybe flights had even been canceled because of the weather…

No, she'd keep those skies clear. Wouldn't she? She wanted T'Challa gone…

He took a deep breath and tried, once again, to clear his mind. He _really_ didn't need to think about T'Challa.

He sat for a few more minutes (or possibly hours) until a light knock on his door had him bolting out of his bed. But before he could even open it, he heard Scott's voice. "He got on the plane." That was all he said before Logan heard the other man's footsteps fading down the hall.

He sat down on his bed once more, frustrated beyond belief. Mostly because he couldn't pinpoint one specific thing to be most frustrated about. Obviously he was angry with T'Challa, but was he more angry at Ororo for the way she'd yelled at Logan? Was he angrier still about how he'd yelled back?

He thought hard about that for a long time before he _finally_ heard heavy footfalls. He quickly got up and left his room to intercept her, nearly knocking her to the ground in his haste. She hardly jumped, only looked up at him with bloodshot eyes and a forcefully detached expression.

Suddenly, he was unsure of what he wanted to say to her. What did she need from him? Anger? Understanding? Indifference? Silence?

"You were gone for a long time," he finally blurted before he could stop himself.

"I was… hesitant about coming back," she said, not quite meeting his gaze.

"Why?"

"I…" She swallowed hard and looked him in the eye. "I didn't want to come back to find that T'Challa wasn't the only person that I'd run out of here."

"And what the h – " But Logan stopped. He knew _exactly_ what the hell she'd meant by that. She thought that he'd be gone when she came back. True, he'd wanted to go out for a ride, but did she think that he'd be gone for good? How could she think that he would leave her? And at a time like this?!

He could answer that question with one word: T'Challa. Ever since her breakdown in the Dark Cerebro chamber, she'd been working on trusting others not to disappoint her. Her self-esteem had gotten better too, even if that fact was only apparent to Logan. Her reaction to Kurt's departure was proof of that.

She'd made so much progress in the past year, and then King T'Challa saunters in and fucks it away in a day and a half!

She took a deep breath and looked away again, bringing him back to the present. "I realize that I didn't exactly treat you like an equal when he was in the room… He doesn't exactly bring out the best in me."

"Nor should someone like that," he said venomously. "Is he gone for good?"

She shook her head. "Hard to say. He's a persistent man. But he knows that I absolutely meant what I said. I could feel the neurological static in his mind."

"I'll tear him apart if I so much as _smell_ his sorry hide ever again."

Her mask slipped away some and she gave him a weary smile. "You certainly made a valiant effort this afternoon. All three of you did."

"Not valiant enough…"

"But perhaps it was a good thing that you kept us from killing him." Logan turned around and saw Scott standing a few feet away, his head lowered somewhat shamefully as he looked at Ororo.

"What do you want?" Ororo said, not moving from her spot. Her tone wasn't hostile, but it certainly wasn't inviting.

"Can I say that I'm sorry," he asked with a sigh. "For everything? Or are we past the point of no return?"

"There's no need to give unnecessary credit, Scott. I did _nothing_ to instigate or encourage how you acted. There's no 'we' involved."

Even Logan was mildly surprised by Ororo's clipped tone. Then again, after the day she'd had, and keeping in mind that Scott hadn't treated her very well since Jean's death…

Scott nodded. "So should I take that to mean that I'm in the figurative doghouse for life?"

Her mouth twisted into an unamused frown. "How about I make you a literal one," she muttered angrily.

Scott hung his head in shame. Ororo turned to Logan as though to get his thoughts on the matter. He could practically hear her thoughts. _"What would _you_ do in this instance?"_ It wasn't a look that asked for approval, not by a long shot. Rather, she seemed to want to know if she was overreacting by still holding onto that anger.

Logan just closed his eyes with his own heavy sigh. He couldn't imagine treating a close friend the way Scott had treated Ororo after Jean had died.

Then again, Logan had never witnessed anything as tragic as losing Ororo.

And hadn't he gone to extremes when Ororo had simply refused to kiss him? Frustrated and confused, he'd kissed Jean only minutes after Ororo had denied him. And then he'd nearly slept with Mystique only minutes after that!

He couldn't even speculate what he might do if he had to watch Ororo die right before his eyes. He honestly thought that what Scott felt for Jean was a fraction of what Logan felt for Ororo. That being the case, if losing Jean had messed Scott up this badly, the thought of what he'd be like if he lost Ororo made him want to cringe. It stood to reason that he'd do desperate and stupid things without weighing the options or considering the consequences. He already did that because his healing ability made him feel invincible. But, if there was nothing to live for, what was the point of immortality? He would push himself until he dropped dead just so he could be spared the pain.

To his credit, Logan would admit that Scott was probably handling Jean's death better than he would handle Ororo's. He'd tear apart everything in his path, including what few friends he had. And Ororo wouldn't be there to tell him to stop and think about what he was doing.

And if it had been Logan that had died, could Ororo honestly say that she would've been any different than Scott was now?

He looked down at Ororo, and in an instant he knew that he'd more or less broadcasted all of those thoughts perfectly to her. She took a deep breath as she walked over to Scott and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. Scott hugged her back just as fiercely and Logan could only admire them. Scott was willing to apologize and try to make things right when he, just as easily, could've left it. And Ororo was willing to forgive him for taking his anger out on her, trusting that they could leave it behind them. They didn't have to vocalize how sorry they both were or how much they loved each other. They both took a shuddering breath and that really said it all.

_This_ was progress. Maybe T'Challa hadn't completely destroyed Ororo emotionally.

Scott gave her final squeeze and a quick kiss on the cheek before he went back down the hall, presumably to retire for the night. Logan wasn't even sure how late it was.

And the second Ororo leaned into Logan's chest and buried her cold nose in the crook of his neck, he didn't care what time it was. "Let's not dwell on this for another second," she said firmly. "He's an ass, but he's gone now. As the Black Panther, he does good things for humanity overseas. As a person… I'm sure he can be… admirable… at times. It really doesn't matter, because we never have to see his face again."

He nodded, wrapping his arms lightly around her back. It felt good to officially put the whole thing behind them. But why did he still feel… bothered?

Ororo had so many chances to avoid this whole mess. If she'd stuck to her instincts and had turned him out yesterday, so much trauma could've been avoided. And Scott wasn't really acting like all of the upset and drama that T'Challa had caused was anything out of the ordinary. If that was the case, then Ororo must've expected that he'd make a scene of some kind.

But she'd let him stay anyway, going so far as to say that he could have another chance.

Yes, perhaps Logan was, himself, a little insecure in thinking that Ororo would leave him if someone better came along. For fuck's sake, couldn't she see how far out of his reach she was?!

"_I'll give you a chance,"_ she'd said. To win her back? Why wouldn't Logan take it that way? She'd practically ignored the fact that he existed when T'Challa was in the room!

He knew that he should tell her what was bothering him. He knew that it would start a fight, but he also knew that it wasn't healthy to let it fester. Also, he couldn't escape the feeling that it would blow up in his face if he didn't say anything about it now, despite the fact that they were both still a little on edge.

He pulled back slightly, looking down at her. "Why _did_ you give him another chance?"

She frowned thoughtfully and shrugged. "Why not? He was my best friend. Ever since that day that he left me, I've missed that friend. I thought that, maybe, he realized that he missed me too."

"So you wanted a friend back?"

She nodded hesitantly. "Yes…"

"And you were perfectly fine with stepping all over your other friends – the ones that haven't once hurt you – to get that friend back?"

Her frown became a glare. "I said I was sorry – "

"About ignoring me, not about coming at me with my insecurities like you did this afternoon. Did you apologize to Scott or Tony or even Pepper? _All_ of us were on the receiving end of your wrath, all because you wanted a friend back that's stripped you of your dignity and self esteem!"

She became as rigid and cold as stone beneath him. Pulling away and putting some distance between them, she gazed at him with a look as black as death. "You think I have no dignity or self esteem," she asked quietly, her eyes glowing.

Logan tried to backpedal. "I just meant that you're letting what he's done and said to you have an effect on – "

"So I don't have a mind of my own? I can't make my own decisions or follow my own heart?"

"Not when part of it still belongs to him!" he snapped. Logan instantly regretted saying that. And when she didn't refute his accusation, his heart shattered. _Oh **shit**_… He'd said _exactly_ the wrong thing. _Way to go, asshole_.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," she said calmly, turning to go to her room.

Logan swallowed hard. _God**damn it!**_ "Don't do this, Ororo," he pleaded, blocking her way. "This isn't progress, its regression. Do you really want to go back to the beginning, where we were a year ago?"

Her back rigid, Ororo slowly looked up at Logan. A single tear slid down her cheek, but she mechanically wiped it away. Her face was perfectly composed, a mask of apparent indifference. "It would be nice to go back," she said coolly, her voice not even quivering. "I didn't hurt this much a year ago."

Logan wanted to scream! _It didn't hurt because you didn't let anything – or anyone_ – _in!!_ Couldn't she see that it would eventually get better?

Since they'd become closer, they hadn't dealt with anything quite as serious as this. The arrival of Tony and Pepper had brought about a few insecurities that Logan hadn't truly been aware of, but before they were able to talk about it, King Asshole had waltzed in and pushed a potentially harmless situation into overdrive, forcing them to deal with these dark spots in their relationship that they either hadn't noticed or had refused to acknowledge.

Was she trying to crawl back inside herself because she thought that their happiness wasn't worth the pain of this one argument? Was it not worth the pain of the argument because she hadn't been particularly happy in the first place?

She smoothly walked around him and Logan followed her, no longer caring if they woke the whole house. "I want to know," he said, raising his voice. "Damn it, Ororo, why are you so afraid of trusting me? Trust that we took _a year_ to build! He comes in and _breathes_ on you and that trust gets placed in him in an instant! It's like he programmed you! I _hate_ him for making you this way!"

He felt that he was on the receiving end of anger that should be directed at T'Challa, but every coherent thought he possessed was tossed out the window when Ororo rounded on him, her eyes glittering fearlessly. She stepped up to him, wrapped her cold fingers around his throat, kicked his feet out from under him and slammed him into the floor. He heard the boards beneath him crack, and he was sure that he'd made a sizable dent that would need explaining.

Her eyes weren't just white. They were a neon electric blue, and thin licks of electricity were dancing around her face. The hall suddenly became windy, making her hair blow in every which direction. She truly looked like a an angry goddess, poised to smite him for his insolence. And the ease with which she'd gotten him into this position made him believe that she could do so merely with a flick of her wrist. The sight of her in such a rage sent a shiver of true horror up his spine.

"He didn't make me into _anything_," she snarled, squeezing his throat until he could hardly breathe. "I don't need his help to decide whether or not I trust you. I make my _own_ choices, and when I chose wrong…" She paused, looking him up and down as she let him go. "I take responsibility for my own mistakes. The best I can do is try to correct those mistakes before it's too late." She stepped hard on his chest as she walked into her room. Logan scrambled to his feet, but she closed the door right in his face.

He raised his fist but couldn't make it move any farther than that. It hovered about an inch away from the door. He didn't dare move, because at that point he wasn't sure if he was going to knock on the door or break it down. He could probably fix it, if he decided to break it down. Provided he didn't use his claws…

He shivered with rage and retreated to his own room. They needed a little time apart, that's all. She'd forgive him and realize that she was overreacting.

Right?

Logan went to lie in his bed, but knew a sleepless night the minute it began.

He was wrong.

He was _so_ fucking wrong.

She'd overreacted about things in the past, certainly, but this wasn't an overreaction. Ororo prided herself in her strong will, and he'd more or less told her that her dignity was based on T'Challa's opinion of her.

He was screwed.

The scent on Ororo's pillow seemed to mock him until he had to throw it across the room. But that didn't help much. The room was thick with her scent, so much that he had to open the windows. But the rain had picked up again and didn't show signs of letting up. Did that mean that she was as upset about the turn of events as he was?

Or was she just going to cry her tears and wash her hands of the whole thing like she had this afternoon with T'Challa? The way she was able to hold up that mask, it was possible that he'd never know.

He growled in frustration and threw his jacket over his shoulder as he headed for the garage. Maybe he'd hotwire another one of Scott's cars. He'd even settle for walking, despite the fact that Ororo might see him and create sizable hail. He just needed a drink.

And not the bullshit that was in the kitchen. Logan needed a _real_ drink.


	74. Clincher

Wow. Okay, first of all, sorry for taking so long. Something happened and my flight home was delayed… by about five weeks.

._.

BUT the good news is that, now that we're finished with 'The Calm Before the Storm', we can FINALLY move on to Part Four: The Last Stand! And I do intend to make good on that promise and update twice a week from now until the end! I should be wrapping this story up (hopefully) before the end of summer, which is good since I'm now planning on MOVING to hotter-than-hell-Arizona in August…

But you probably came here to read the chapter, yeah? Here ya go! As always, thank you to everyone who reads/reviews this story. (Even the flames. Obviously I made an impression of sorts if you feel the need to tell me how much you DON'T like my story.) You keep me going! KISSES!

:)

Enjoy!

* * *

Logan scanned the garage for Scott's motorcycle. He really didn't care if it got hail damage on the way to a bar. He just needed to get the hell out of the mansion, and he needed to get the hell out _now_.

But he didn't see it anywhere. It was possible that Scott had relocated it to a private storage room in an effort to keep his bike to himself. As many times as Logan had stolen it and neglected to top off the gas, he really wouldn't've blamed Scott if he had...

"Nice of you to join me!" Logan jumped a foot in the air and nearly let out a startled cry. As he turned around, Tony slid out from under one of the many expensive looking cars, tightly clutching a bottle of what smelled like expensive scotch. As a matter of fact, _he_ smelled like a bottle of expensive scotch. And there wasn't a fleck of dust or grease on his clothes, so he hadn't been working on the car.

Who just sat under a car and drank?

Tony swayed a little as he sat up, and had to blink a few times before his eyes actually settled on Logan's form. "Hey, look at that! It's Logan! I was right. You enjoying this _lovely_ evening too?" Tony turned his nose up at the word, suggesting that his evening had been anything but lovely.

Despite the fact that Logan _really_ didn't want to talk, he eyed the remaining alcohol in the bottle like a starving wolf might stare down a deer. "Depends," he answered cautiously.

Tony nodded, stretching out the bottle for Logan to take. He downed the contents - a measly two shots was left - in one swallow and hardly even burped. Tony gave him a look that made Logan feel like he was having his mind read. For all the ridiculous flamboyancy that Tony exuded, he really was an intelligent man. Or perhaps the ability to sense when a fellow man was in need of severe intoxication was ingrained in the brain of every male. "Need more?" Tony asked, already attempting to stand up. " 'Cause _I_ sure as hell do."

Though it was clear that he was quite drunk, Tony managed to make it to his feet and even walked down the basement halls with the practice of a man that was used to getting drunk. And often. In the back of his mind, Logan hoped that he wasn't an alcoholic. Then again, smart man that he was, Tony probably had some sort of filter attached to his liver to keep him healthy.

He followed Tony into the hanger and onto his jet - which looked like some kind of luxury hotel lobby from the inside - and he went straight to the bar. Opening the cabinets, Tony motioned to the various bottles with drunken flourish before grabbing one and flopping down onto one of the large couches. "Pick your poison," he said as he opened his own bottle. "Glasses are... somewhere around here..."

"I'm here to get drunk, Stark," Logan said flatly as he chose the one and only bottle without a label. It smelled like the strongest alcohol in the cabinet, and that was good enough for him. "A glass will only slow me down." He screwed off the bottle cap and took a healthy swig. It went down smoother than water, and it tasted as potent as it smelled.

Tony lifted his bottle and they clinked the necks together. "Well said."

After another drink, Logan looked at the bottle he was holding before glancing at Tony. "Is this Everclear?"

Tony shrugged. "Probably."

Well, no wonder it had smelled like the strongest alcohol in the cabinet. At 190 proof, Everclear was one of the strongest alcohols in the world. Logan nodded to himself in self-satisfaction. He'd chosen well. "This stuff is illegal in New York," he said thoughtfully as he took another drink.

At that, Tony gave him a wide grin. "It's also illegal in twelve other states, including California. Drink up. Be merry. Have a Cuban cigar. Hell if I care…"

A Cuban cigar… That sounded pretty damn good to Logan.

* * *

Logan slowly cracked his eyes open, his vision swimming a little. He was staring at a nearly empty bottle of alcohol. That didn't come as much of a surprise. A few mouthfuls of that stuff had erased his mind like an etch-a-sketch.

He lifted his head an inch and put it right back down, his metal skull pounding like someone was repeatedly hammering it. A hangover.

A _fucking_ hangover.

He didn't get drunk often, as his healing ability usually kicked in and destroyed the alcohol in his blood. It usually didn't manage getting past his liver without being destroyed. But every once in a blue moon, when he was under a lot of stress, his powers were thrown out of whack and he was able to get tanked. He'd only awoken to a hangover once before.

It hadn't been fun then, and it sure as hell wasn't fun now.

He felt something on top of him shift and the pounding subsided a little. Weight like that could only belong to a body. A _male_ body.

He hadn't gotten _**that**_ drunk, had he?

Tony groaned loudly as he moved around on top of Logan, but Logan blessedly felt layers of clothing between them. He gave Tony a sharp shove and the man slipped off of him, crying out as he hit the floor beside him. "After all we went through last night?" Tony demanded foggily. "After we cried and hugged and chased all those demons away..."

"What's this _we_ shit?" Logan grumbled. There were a few blank spots in his memory of the night before, but he didn't remember anything like that. "_You_ said you missed someone named Rhodey, _you_ hugged me, and _you_ cried."

"I saw a tear slide down your cheek," Tony tried.

"You were boring me. It was probably drool." He hoped. He didn't exactly remember that…

He remembered a drinking game, trying to play some game called Final Fantasy on Tony's Xbox, nearly breaking said Xbox in his frustration, and then...

And then they'd talked about why they wanted to drink until they forgot. Logan had told him quite a lot about his relationship with Ororo. Or what it had been before he'd screwed up. Then Tony had described his screw up with Pepper, which didn't seem to be so much a screw up as simply saying too much too soon…

They'd both talked of how pathetic they were, pining after women that shouldn't bother giving them the time of day. And yet, they wanted nothing more in the world than their love. Logan would've been satisfied if Ororo loved him only half as much as he loved her… That part of the conversation had gotten entirely too sappy for Logan's liking. They talked of how they'd fallen in love with these difficult and irresistible women, and then Tony had turned on earsplitting music in an attempt to drown out his thoughts.

How he and Tony had ended up sprawled out on the floor and - for lack of a less embarrassing term - _cuddling_ was an absolute mystery. Tony must _really_ miss this Rhodey, but Logan tried not to think too hard about that.

Tony sat up easily and rubbed his eyes. Aside from looking tired, he looked perfectly fine. Logan found that he had a new respect for Tony, not because he could drink so much without getting a whisper of a hangover, but because such tolerance spoke of deep pain that he'd tried to drown more than once. And hadn't yet been successful.

Logan knew the feeling, though in the past he'd been drinking in an attempt to remember. He'd done that religiously for fifteen years. But no matter how much alcohol a man put away, the morning brought back all the nasty memories that he didn't want – or, as had been the case with Logan, a giant black abyss.

And wasn't it funny that now Logan wanted nothing more than for that nothingness to return.

"It'll work out," Tony muttered, sleepily rubbing his eyes. When Logan frowned at him, he clarified. "Between you and the goddess of rage and wrath, that is. I'll be honest; I highly doubt that she'll apologize for anything that she said or did to you. At least, she won't apologize first. But I know from experience that she'll let you know when she's ready to hear an apology from _you_."

Logan snorted softly. "This is kind of pathetic," he muttered. "There isn't a man on earth as whipped as I am on her."

"If that happens to be true – which I doubt, since I'm pretty damn whipped on Pepper – then all I can say is that there also isn't a man on earth as in love as you are."

That was… an interesting way of looking at it. "You could write poetry on greeting cards."

"Hallmark didn't accept my application," he said, quite seriously. "Or the portfolios I sent them."

Logan gingerly sat up and rubbed eyes that were likely bloodshot. Though it was more than obvious that Pepper was fond of Tony, Logan didn't know her well enough to tell Tony something similar with as much certainty. He told him as much and Tony waved a hand dismissively. "Don't feel sorry for the Stark. I'm too stubborn to accept defeat. I'll get her heart if I have to worm my way into it. But that'll have to come after we get back to Malibu, which should be today before noon…"

Logan stopped listening when he caught the sound of clicking heels. It had to be Pepper, as no one else in the mansion really bothered with heels. At least, not in the basement…

She climbed aboard the aircraft and blankly looked between Logan and Tony. It was only when she saw the bottles that she scowled at the both of them. "Unbelievable," she muttered. "Have you forgotten, Mr. Stark, that you and I are due back in Malibu for a meeting at eleven?"

"I sure did," he chimed with a smile that he probably thought was charming. "We can be fashionably late."

She crossed her arms and zeroed in on Tony. "It's eleven in Malibu right now. Your version of fashionably late is a good three hours."

"They know that."

"Tony…"

"I'll work off this headache, take a quick trip to that delightful Danger Room…"

"_ANTHONY!_" Both Logan and Tony jumped at her angry tone. "I'm not playing. I've put up with a lot this past week, which I wouldn't've had to if you hadn't pressured me into coming to New York. I've had enough, Tony."

"I told you that I was sorry…"

"And I told you that I didn't want to hear it! If you want to stay so badly, then take the suit and I'll have Jarvis fly me back. I don't care what you do, but I'm going back to Malibu in" – she glanced at her watch – "exactly ten minutes. With or _without_ you."

She stormed out of the jet, leaving Logan and Tony sitting on the floor in utter silence. Shaking his head slowly, Tony finally gave Logan a weary smile. "You see? You're not the only guy that hops to when his lady snaps her fingers."

Tony hardly winced as he got to his feet and followed Pepper. Logan took a little longer to get to his feet, but he managed and soon he was on his way out of the hanger and into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. As he weaved around the children and pretended that he wasn't half dead, he noted that the rain had lightened considerably, though it hadn't stopped. The sky was a flat and cloudy gray, neither dark nor light. Just… flat. Weather like this often had the students feeling sleepy and bored, so the kitchen was blessedly quiet despite the fact that there were fifteen students milling about.

Until Lee burst in and shouted, "Tony Stark is _leaving_!"

Every student jumped out of their seat and rushed down the hall. The last student was out the door only five seconds after that announcement. Logan made himself follow, hoping that they didn't maul Tony on his way out. Sad wasn't the right word to describe how Logan felt about Tony and Pepper's departure, but he wouldn't deny that he'd miss them a little.

Apparently not as much as Lee, who squealed excitedly when Tony gave her a quick and harmless hug. Kitty glared at her poisonously, but the look vanished when Tony smirked and dropped a kiss on her cheek. Other girls tried to scoot forward too, and Logan rolled his eyes. He could've been a movie star the way they all salivated over him.

The light scent of strawberry shampoo drifted into his nose and he turned to see Pepper standing beside him, staring at Tony with a carefully smooth expression. "I'm sorry you had to see that," she said quietly. "I usually don't let myself get so worked up."

Logan shrugged. "Maybe that's the reason that it happened. Let yourself be angry at him more often. I'm sure he deserves it."

She smiled and chuckled, but both expressions were humorless. "You're right. He did deserve it."

He nudged her shoulder gently and she looked up at him. "Take it easy on him. Do you really think he's trying to make you miserable, or is he just trying to make you lighten up?"

"You're probably right," she said with a sigh. "But he's like a puppy. I tell him no and he sees how far he can push me before I snap."

"So treat him like you'd treat a puppy; praise him when he does good and slap his nose when he does bad. As much attention as he needs, you'd probably get away with petting his head too."

Pepper gave him a bright smile, but there was no mistaking the mischief written all over her face. "Or perhaps cuddling him?"

Logan turned away from her and sipped his coffee pointedly. "Have a nice trip home."

She chuckled and gave him a quick hug, which he returned warmly. Tony was being tugged from all angles by both boys and girls when a strong voice finally brought an end to the madness. "All right, all right." Logan tensed as he heard Ororo's voice. She didn't sound as chipper as she usually did, but she didn't sound angry or impatient either. He heard and saw only weary amusement. "He'll never be able to leave if you guys keep this up. He'll be back, right Tony?"

Tony grinned. "Anything for such adoring fans," he said happily, waving as the students said their goodbyes and reluctantly left. He and Ororo exchanged a brief goodbye that ended in a kiss on her cheek before Tony turned and left, side by side with Pepper.

Scott rounded the corner and Tony bounced happily, giving him a two finger salute. "Later, Scoot!"

"Whatever, Stark," Scott muttered under his breath as he continued down the hall. Logan turned to go back to the kitchen, but was half dragged in by Scott before he realized that the man had been heading his way.

Logan nearly spilled his coffee all down his shirt. "…the fuck...?"

Scott closed the large double doors behind them and glared daggers at Logan. "How about I ask you that? You ought to fucking know better, Logan!"

If only he knew why he was being cursed at by Scott so early in the morning... "If something is wrong with one of your cars, I can tell you that Tony was drinking under one of them last night…"

"You're kidding, right? You tell Storm that she's programmable and you think I give a shit about what Stark did under my car?"

Oh. Logan ran his fingers through his wild hair. "I didn't mean for it to come out the way it did," he said finally.

"No shit! You, of _all_ people, should've been able to foresee how angry that would make her."

Logan glared back at Scott. "But I'm not allowed to be angry at _anything_ that she said to me, right? Why do I have to bend over backwards for her every single fucking time _she_ gets angry? We're both supposed to _give_ and take, and all she's been doing is taking!" Perhaps that statement wasn't _entirely_ true. But, damn it, if she was allowed to get angry then he should be allowed to as well!

Scott removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, carefully keeping them shut. "You've got a lot to learn about relationships if you think that your opinion is worth a damn in the heat of an argument," he said as he put his glasses back on. "But you know what… it's not my place to interfere, so I'm going to remove myself from this completely." He wiped his hands in midair and showed his empty palms to Logan. "You two figure it out."

With that, he left Logan alone in the kitchen. He glanced down at his now cold cup of coffee and sighed heavily. _What a hell of a morning…_ He was getting the feeling that his best option would be to just go work out for the rest of the day, avoid contact with absolutely everyone.

That actually sounded like a damn good plan. So good, in fact, that it was all he thought about as he left the kitchen, went down the hall, rounded the corner…

And ran right into the person whose Shit List he topped. Ororo went to the ground in a heap, and Logan nearly fell on top of her. But, mindful of his enormous weight and how fond of him she wasn't, he rolled off to the side and hit the ground, missing her entirely.

He scrambled to his knees and hurriedly recovered the papers that she'd scattered in her fall, feeling like a clumsy, adolescent fool all the while. He didn't bother to help her up. Not because he didn't want to, but because he knew that she would refuse.

Already on her feet, she towered over him menacingly as he handed her back the papers. He didn't stand to his full height right away. She snatched them out of his grasp, but didn't beat feet right away. Logan had to wonder why, but then realize that his mouth was open. She was waiting because she thought he wanted to say something.

And he did. An apology was on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to apologize for causing her so much pain by what he'd said. He wanted to apologize for getting in her way and knocking her to the ground. He wanted to cave in and tell her that he loved her. So much.

And – while he was still a little heated and had the courage to do so – he wanted to tell her to stop being so damn proud and admit that she'd been harsh on him as well.

"Do you have something that you want to say," she demanded in a snappish tone.

Her eyes were as hard and cold as ice, just as they had been the night before. But the same terror didn't race up his spine. Instead it was a sharp, bitter agony, made worse by the fact that she probably felt it too. He couldn't say what he really wanted to. Unless... "Not unless you want me to," he said quietly, slowly standing to his full height.

Looking down at her, he could see that she already knew what he wanted to say to her. How they could know each other so well that they were nearly telepathic, he'd never know. But the connection was there. The tightly coiled muscles in her entire body relaxed by only half a degree. If that. But Logan noticed the change and hope began to creep into his heart. Despite how angry she was, she still loved him.

Right? She _had_ to. If she was still angry, then she must care. And if she cared, then that meant that he hadn't pushed her away forever.

"There's nothing I want to hear you say right now," she snapped. She gave him a lingering glare before stomping past him and down the hall, disappearing into one of the classrooms. As she left his sight, his chest loosened just a little bit more. Perhaps she didn't want to hear it now, but that implied that she wanted to eventually.

Just as Tony had said.


	75. Building Tension

This is, by far, the longest chapter of this entire story. But, I promised speedier updates, and this one got a little out of control... Anyway, just a note that updates should be coming every Monday and Thursday after this week! My dad has me doing as much damn house work as he can get out of me before I move across the country, but since I'm a night owl I think I'll be able to make the deadlines.

Thank you to my undercover beta, SuniGyrl, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY! How does it feel to have your birthday be on the release date of 'Eclipse'? -.-' Fail. (No offense to 'Twilight' fans, as this third movie looks a helluva lot better than the first two.) Hope you did something fun though. You know, besides reading this and all...

Enjoy everyone!

* * *

**Part Four: Weathering The Storm**

An annoyed frown had settled on Logan's face the moment he'd been called to Xavier's office, and it hadn't lifted an inch now that he was on his way to the Danger Room. Few things got his full attention like the Danger Room did, but he just wasn't in the mood. Not today.

For one, it was one of his precious few days off, and it officially wasn't his responsibility to supervise or take part in a Danger Room session. For two, while Ororo had apologized a few weeks ago for her rash behavior – in what the students in the school had begun calling 'The T'Challa Incident' – they still weren't on the best of terms.

And it wasn't entirely her fault.

Thinking that Tony knew quite a bit about Ororo's tantrums and groveling for forgiveness, Logan had opted for his 'wait for her to come to you' suggestion. They'd moved around at opposite ends of the school for a good two months, and Logan hardly caught sight of her except for a flash of white hair as she rounded a corner or her lingering scent.

His heart had ached at the fact that she went so out of her way to avoid him, but the longer she'd avoided him, the angrier he'd gotten. How the hell had he been made the villain? If anything, T'Challa was the villain, and Ororo the victim. After she'd snapped out of it, she'd also risen as the hero, but how did she calculate that Logan was the bad guy in this instance?

The answer was simple: he wasn't. She must've blown up at him because part of her – however small that part might've been – _knew_ that he was right. Admittedly, he could've worded it a little better, but the basic concept was the same: despite the fact that Ororo loved Logan, T'Challa still had some sort of sway over her. But she was too proud to admit that Logan was right, and Logan was quickly losing patience with her mercurial temper.

He was honestly reluctant to call the conversation between them an apology. Her efforts had been half-assed at best, and Logan gave as good as he got.

_Logan muttered a distracted, "Come in," in response to the knock on his door. Correcting tests was one of his least favorite parts of teaching, but he tolerated it only because he didn't have to do it nearly as often as the other teachers. Using a red marker to write 'FAIL' across the top of Bobby's horrendous diagram of weak spots on the human anatomy, he pushed it aside and turned to see his midnight visitor._

_His blood ran dry at the sight that met him. So absorbed in his task and so used to her avoiding him at all costs, he'd never expected to see Ororo staring down at him with an expression that was a mixture of annoyance and confusion. After the initial shock wore off and she continued staring at him, he frowned at her and leaned back in his chair. "Is there something you wanted?" he asked cautiously._

_She blinked, as though snapping out of a daze and stood up a little straighter. "I honestly expected that you'd've tried to apologize by now," she said, her voice even. _

_At that, Logan's frown deepened. He'd been tirelessly trying to figure out how a conversation between them would pan out after all this time, and this wasn't the beginning of one of the more promising ones. "You were bending over backwards to avoid me," he said, his tone just as crisp. "How do you know that I didn't try?"_

"_Because I know you."_

_He raised an eyebrow in challenge. "That a fact?"_

"_It is, actually," she said, crossing her arms. "So why haven't you?" Her tone wasn't angry or malicious or even tense. Just perturbed and bewildered, tinged with a hint of impatience._

"_Well, Tony suggested – "_

_Ororo pinched the bridge of her nose and turned away from Logan, walking to the window. "Tony says a lot of things, usually without thinking first."_

"_You two seem to have that in common."_

_In all honesty, he hadn't meant to say it out loud. It was a simple slip of the tongue so, apparently, all three of them shared that trait. Logan's eyes widened as he watched Ororo's back visibly tense, and was surprised when an apology didn't slip out afterwards. It had been taken as a personal jab and Logan did nothing to take it back. In fact, he felt a sliver of satisfaction when he saw fog build up on the window courtesy of the dropping temperature._

_She turned to face him with an expression that was much more than annoyed, and Logan recognized it immediately. It was a look that an angered superior might give a subordinate…_

_Or that an owner might give a troublesome dog._

_And that was the straw that broke the camel's back._

_He met her gaze without flinching as he practically snarled, "What did you expect? That I'd seek you out at all costs, eager to be your punching bag again? That I'd simply wait until the next time that your temper got out of control and take it up the ass without complaint?"_

_Her eyes widened in shock, but quickly narrowed as her eyes frosted over. It began snowing in Logan's room, but neither mutant paid it much attention. _

"_You make it sound like __**I'm**__ the abuser," she hissed._

"_You __**are!**__ And like a goddamn stray – grateful for any scraps I could get – I fucking __**took**__ it! And when I tried to say my piece, I was shot right down and made the enemy! You always expected me to bow out or try to make amends! You said yourself that you expected me to apologize sooner! Fuck that!"_

_Blue licks of electric static began to dance across her face, which was twisted in a fearsome rage. But instead of fear, Logan felt his own fury roar in response. He was close to pushing his claws out of his fists before Ororo closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. The blizzard that had begun stilled and left them both in a silent standoff._

_Finally, she purposefully marched over to the door and grabbed the frame as though to steady her herself. Or perhaps her temper. She turned her head, giving him only her profile as she said, with difficulty, "I'll apologize for the way you think I treated you and for some of the harsh things that I said, but I absolutely won't apologize for feeling offended by what you said or for being angry."_

"_How thoughtful of you," he sneered, unable to help himself. He had barely finished the statement before Ororo slammed the door shut behind her, possibly shaking the entire mansion._

At first, he'd wondered what the hell had come over him. Yes, he'd been long overdue in telling her just how mistreated he felt, but it seemed that he'd been holding his temper back so much that it had boiled over.

While that was true, there was another factor.

The third and final reason that he didn't want to be down in the Danger Room was because he wanted to be somewhere – _anywhere_ – but at the school. Everything that the walls represented had him feeling constricted: too many fucking rules, too many fucking busybodies' hell bent on enforcing them, too much fucking aggravation…

He constantly told himself that those were the reasons that he was feeling constricted, but that wasn't entirely true. He was feeling… shifty, like an animal that wanted to flee before a storm hit. Or like a psychic that had seen the apocalypse but didn't have a specific time or date. The very air he breathed was suffocating, and it kept getting thicker as time passed.

He wanted to do _something_, but hell if he knew what that something was. All he knew was that the feeling had been increasing over the past few weeks with no signs of abating. And, with no option but to wait for whatever might be coming his way, he'd been unconsciously taking it out on Ororo.

Well, not unconsciously. He knew that he'd be thrown out on his ass if he agitated the students any more than he already did, but they were usually well behaved while in his presence so there was no strain to keep himself under control around them. The professor was always either locked up in the Cerebro chamber or giving a quick lesson to the students, and Scott…

Surprisingly, Scott seemed to be getting more and more agitated too, though Logan couldn't be sure that it was for the same reason. As far as Logan knew, the man didn't have senses as heightened as his own. Yet, two months ago, he had begun hearing tense pacing at all hours of the night coming from Scott's room. He was also beginning to flee the premises of the school at random times, as though feeling suffocated by the structure. Logan had lately found himself going for a jog rather than a motorcycle ride because of that.

He couldn't find it in him to add to Scott's disquiet, because he could understand the restlessness. With the Danger Room done, Scott didn't have anything to really occupy his time. But what he _did_ have was the luxury of being left to himself because everyone knew that he was still a hollow shell almost a year after Jean's death. Because Logan was putting on a front and pretending that nothing was bothering him, he was treated the same as ever by just about everyone. He was the one that was wearing a mask of apparent indifference now, and he could finally understand why the comfort and protection that it offered had appealed to Ororo.

Marie, Kitty and Lee gave him space from time to time, sensing that something wasn't quite right with him. They seemed to be the only ones aware that anything was amiss with him, but other than that…

Ororo was a wide open target, and while she had 'apologized' for how she'd treated him, Logan couldn't find it in him to forgive her so easily this time. Their breakup hadn't been the first time he'd suffered her wrath simply for telling her how he felt, and if he went back to her with no questions asked then it wouldn't be the last.

They were pretty much back to where they'd started when they first met, as though the past year hadn't happened at all. Logan would've been inclined to think that it _had_ all been some kind of illusion, if not for the vivid dreams of them together that could only be cured by a glacial shower in the morning. Maddeningly, his mind seemed hell bent on showing him exactly what he was missing out on.

Still, he knew exactly what the hell he was doing in baiting Ororo and he made no effort to stop. Something in him didn't want to have things go back to the way they had been. Not exactly, anyhow. It wasn't fair that she could get as mad as she wanted and have him crawl back to her like a beaten dog after she'd had time to cool herself down.

A rather sadistic part of him wanted to, just once, have the control; have _her_ crawl in a corner and lick her wounds before she came crawling back to _him_. But he wasn't much of a sadist, so it was a very small part of him. She had too much pride to crawl to anyone, and maybe the problem with their relationship had been the fact that it wasn't in _his_ nature to crawl to anyone either. They were both alphas, both dominants, but he'd been surprisingly submissive for her. Maybe it _had_ all been something of an illusion, some kind of fantasy made real…

He pushed all of those bothersome thoughts away as he pushed open the door and walked into the Danger Room's control room. In her full X-Men uniform, Ororo had her back to him, staring out of the large one way mirror at the youngest X-Men with the stillness of a gargoyle. She didn't flinch when he came in, nor did she greet him. He assumed that Xavier had probably told her that he was on his way when Scott had neglected to show up.

Whether she was irked about Scott not showing up or Logan having to fill in, he wasn't sure. He knew that it irked _him_ that Scott got away with coming and going as he pleased without any repercussions, while Logan was practically harassed if he left just for the night.

But that wasn't exactly Scott's fault. It was Xavier's and Ororo's and even his for letting Scott do that and not saying a word about it. As it was clear that neither Ororo nor Xavier were going to say anything about it in the near future, Logan made a mental note to talk to Scott after this training session was over with.

Logan walked up to the glass panel – careful to keep some distance between himself and the tense weather witch – and looked down at the chaos that she'd simulated for the children's first 'mission' without adult guidance.

Apparently not one to go easy on them, she'd created a nighttime war zone. The setting had undoubtedly once been a town square of sorts. Residential homes on one side, business and district buildings on the other side, a park, a school…

It all lay in ruins.

Trees had been reduced to shattered stubs or scorched beyond recognition, the streets were choked with debris and rubble from collapsed buildings, and just about everything was on fire.

For a while, Logan and Ororo silently supervised, each silently taking note of what the students were doing right and what they were doing wrong. Logan had no way of truly knowing what Ororo thought of it, but the tight expression on her face suggested that she wasn't impressed. If Logan was going to be honest, he wasn't impressed either. The younger X-Men did well when they were given a direct command by a superior, but it was clear that none of them had stepped up and accepted the responsibility of being the superior.

Undoubtedly, they were trying to listen to each other, and not with much success. Working as a team was good – necessary, actually – but they weren't going to get very far without a leader. He was mildly disappointed that Kitty, his best combat student, wasn't taking the lead. Instead, she, Marie, Bobby and Peter would move to a hidden location, stay there for far too long, and then move again.

Kitty hardly bothered ducking since nothing could hurt her, Bobby and Marie were talking entirely too much – or were they arguing _again?_ – and Peter was simply waiting on the others to make up their minds before getting visibly frustrated and moving them to a new location himself. They did this for an agonizing twenty minutes before a nearby car exploded and they all scattered like roaches in the sun.

Ororo pinched the bridge of her nose with an irate sigh. "Do we round them up and make them start over, or leave them to completely fail the mission?"

Logan waited a few beats, wondering if she was addressing him or simply talking to herself. When she glanced up at him, he shrugged. "It's painful to watch," he admitted. "And they wouldn't have the luxury of immediate help from superiors if they were on an actual mission."

"Perhaps it was too much too soon."

He shook his head slowly. "Not necessarily. They have to learn somehow," he replied. Still, he could see the logic in rounding them up and letting them try again. He just hoped that they were quick about it. That claustrophobic feeling was itching its way through his entire body. He needed to get the hell out of the school, even if it was only for the afternoon.

"Let's try anyway," Ororo said, leading the way out of the control room and into the chaos of the simulation. When the door was securely shut behind them, it vanished and Ororo lifted off the ground without sparing Logan a second glance.

It was just as well. No one could predict his moods anymore, not even him.

Logan idly strolled through the chaos, digging through his pockets for his last Cuban cigar that he'd snatched from Tony. Now was the perfect chance to smoke it, since no one else in the Danger Room would really notice. Plus, he entertained the likely-false notion that it might calm him enough that he wouldn't snap at any of the younger X-Men in his agitation.

He caught site of Peter and Marie, who were working together, he was satisfied to see. The hulking Russian was in the lead, but moving with surprising grace despite his size. He had reverted to his metal state, carefully scoping out the path ahead of them while Marie covered the rear. She used to flinch at loud noises; now she kept pace with her companion, bobbing and weaving with practiced ease. She presented a random and unpredictable target for the opposition. _Excellent instincts._

She hadn't caught sight of Logan yet, which meant that she wasn't showing off for an audience. But if she knew what she was doing, then why the hell hadn't she done that from the start? The answer was obvious.

Bobby. The two had been visibly growing more distant towards one another, and whenever they were together they were a distraction to each other.

Now that Bobby wasn't right next to her, she could focus, and it was clear that her skills had been improving at an astounding rate. In a few weeks time she'd probably be up to par with Kitty.

Without warning, Marie pushed Peter down and into cover. As soon as she hit the ground, she turned back the way they'd come, every one of her senses on high alert. Peter was right behind her, but his wasn't as artful a landing. The downside to all that bulk was, despite his relative ease of movement and sheer power, he still landed like a falling bank safe.

Logan couldn't help the grin that spread across his face, not because of Peter's fall, but because Marie seemed to be sniffing the air. She'd ducked for cover because she'd caught his scent in the air. Even though it'd been a good year and a half since the Statue of Liberty, she'd retained his sharp sense of smell.

She finally saw him, just in time for a nearby explosion to send debris and rubble flying right at all three of them. Before either Logan or Marie could react, Peter touched his bare hand to Marie's head, and her skin immediately flashed chrome as armor rolled up her face. When the spray of shrapnel reached her, it deflected off harmlessly…

… and clipped Logan instead. He flinched, but only felt a sharp shock when the image hit him. Marie grimaced on his behalf, but Logan knew that the super computer conjured up the most horrendous wounds imaginable on the body.

Peter let her go and the chrome disappeared from both their faces. He looked a little woozy, but Logan knew that touching her could take it out of a guy, even one as big as Peter. He blinked hard and shook his head, and while he staggered a little as he got to his feet, the Russian otherwise appeared to be fine. But he and Marie didn't continue moving like they ought to.

Logan rolled his eyes. "The whole world's going to hell and your just going to sit there?" he goaded.

"I didn't see you at the meeting, bub," she sassed back.

"So you should know more about this assignment than I do."

She narrowed her eyes at him, though it was clear that she wasn't angry. She turned to Peter. "Do you have the _slightest_ idea where we're going?"

Peter simply shrugged in response. "I've been looking for Logan the entire time."

She scowled at him, grumbling a few choice curses that made Peter break out in a wide grin.

"Let's go," Logan snapped. Ordinarily, he wouldn't've given a damn about their kidding around, but this wasn't an ordinary setting. They had both breached battlefield discipline; had forgotten for a fateful split second what was happening all around them. Had this been an actual mission, they could've paid dearly for the lapse.

But that was what they had Logan for. Marie and Peter had the knowledge from whatever briefing Ororo had given them, but Logan had the experience. And his experience told him that they'd be in grave danger if they went out on their own mission. They weren't ready for that yet.

They snapped to attention at the order and Logan led them through the wreckage, watching them both like a hawk as they ducked and dodged any obstacles that came their way. And Logan… well, he didn't much feel like actively participating. He walked right out in the open as though he were out for an evening stroll. Ororo would probably want is hide for it, but he didn't care at that particular moment. Scott was the one that had let her down in this instance.

The smell of dry ice caught Logan's attention and he turned to see that Bobby and Kitty had paired up as well, and were headed in their direction. Like Marie and Peter, Bobby was ducking and weaving around obstacles. And, like Logan, Kitty looked like she was out for a late night walk.

She got away with being as dangerously arrogant as Logan only because she didn't believe that she could be hurt. She didn't have to worry much about being taken by surprise either, because for the most part her power was always 'on'. According to the professor, her natural state was to be phased. Staying solid was an act of will.

And on top of all that, she was a damn good fighter. Even when she kept herself in a solid state for long periods of time, the other students had a hard time keeping up with her strength and stamina.

She was still alert, as Logan was, but she couldn't get special treatment just because she was intangible and the top student. He tried to catch her gaze to tell her to move like the other students, but her attention was suddenly focused on a missile that was headed straight for the pair.

Seeing the threat as well, Bobby threw his arms out in front of the missile, using two powerful gets of ice to slow and stop it before it 'killed' them. Coated in a thick layer of ice, it fell to the ground harmlessly, and Bobby turned to give Kitty a self satisfied smirk. The idiot had turned his back too soon, as another missile had followed right after the first. Kitty shouted his name, possibly in an attempt to turn him around. But, smartly guessing that she'd act faster, she flung herself into his arms and crushed their bodies together right before the second missile passed through them harmlessly.

A nearby car exploded in the blast and Bobby sighed in what seemed, to Logan, like over exaggerated relief as he looked down at her. "Thanks, Kitty."

It didn't escape Logan's notice that it took a few extra moments for them to break apart, and that dazzled smile that he was giving her seemed to be more than simple gratitude. But he hoped that he was interpreting wrong. And he _really_ hoped that Kitty wasn't the reason for the obvious problems between Marie and Bobby.

He knew better than to think that Kitty harbored any feelings other than friendship towards Bobby. The only person she'd shown anything remotely close to romantic affection to had been Tony and, surprisingly, Kurt. The former was obviously fangirl obsession, but the latter… Logan honestly wondered about the true extent of those feelings. Kitty had seemed more than a little offended by his departure, now that he thought about it…

He looked out of the corner of his eye to check on Marie and Peter, and zeroed in on the black jealousy in Marie's eyes as she glared at Kitty and Bobby. It was obvious that she wanted to be able to touch him freely and without fear of hurting him, and from the way Bobby was clinging to Kitty, perhaps he missed that kind of contact as well.

After an agonizing moment of watching a multitude of emotions flicker across Marie's face, Logan saw her straighten herself and turn away from them, seemingly putting it out of her mind for the moment. While it was only a training exercise, she had a job to do, and she seemed to realize that. As she passed him, Logan patted her shoulder. "Atta girl."

Without being told, Kitty began moving defensively just like her classmates and even made herself solid. Logan knew that she was solid only because she had no scent when she was intangible, and when she was solid she carried the odd scent of vaporized fog fluid. Fitting, since she was more or less a ghost…

Logan watched them all with a careful eye. He'd admit that he was impressed by their progress – it was certainly an improvement from only five minutes ago – but he wasn't so impressed that he'd call this mission a success. Not by a long shot.

Spying a burning car, he momentarily forgot about the children and wondered about the training simulation. It gave a shock of electricity that was meant to simulate pain and injuries. If he wasn't mistaken, the fire ought to give off heat to simulate, well, heat from a fire. So, theoretically, he could light his cigar on the flames, right? _Only one way to find out…_

Approaching the car, he bent his body at an awkward angle and it lit better than he'd expected. Standing up straight, he smirked as he took a drag of his cigar. "The things you invent, Stark," he muttered appreciatively. No wonder the man was richer than a king.

Ororo's scent suddenly overpowered the smoke of his cigar just as she ducked for cover near him. When she took in the sight of him – leaning against a concrete slab and smoking a Cuban cigar without a care in the world – her eyes turned a livid shade of neon blue. "I hope you're kidding?" she said, eyeing his cigar pointedly.

"It was a scientific experiment," he explained lazily, pointing at the flames. "A success, obviously."

"We're getting killed out here," she snapped, motioning to the escalating chaos for emphasis.

He tapped the ashes away in the air between them. "It's kind of hard to miss and it's because they're not ready, Storm."

"Logan…" A flash of lightning and a trill of thunder echoed her emotions. Chances were, when this op was concluded, someone, somewhere might have to deal with some very nasty weather. If he dipped out of the Danger Room soon enough after the simulation ended, that someone wouldn't have to be him.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to try to calm her down. "Oh, don't get your panties in a bun – "

Ororo moved on him before Logan could process the thought of her getting nearer. Doing exactly as Kitty had, she threw herself at him and held him tightly to her body. But that brief, agonizing moment of pleasurable contact lasted less than half a second, because he soon after felt his feet leave the ground and found himself spinning in midair before he could gather the oxygen to shout in shock or outrage. He was spinning _much_ faster than he ever wanted to again, and it end too abruptly when he collided hard with a tall slab of cement. He blinked away stars, sure that he heard her mumbling something angry and unflattering in her native tongue.

When his vision was finally clear and his head no longer spinning, he glanced over at the car that they'd been leaning against only moments ago. A large rock had flattened it, and it was a good ten feet away from where they were at the moment. He knew damn well that she could've pushed him out of the way or landed him as gently as she'd landed herself. Had he known that the threat was coming, he might've expected her to just leave him. But she hadn't, which either meant that she wasn't all that mad, or that she was so mad that she didn't want anything but _her_ hurting him.

He was inclined to think that it was the latter, and he wouldn't hold it against her if that was the case. He knew that he was being a bit of an ass, and he knew that it would only get worse the longer that he was in the school.

He needed to end his.

He went to take another drag of his cigar, hoping that it would take a little bit of the edge off of his nerves. He was met with an empty hand, and glared as he scanned the ground for his cigar. It had been there two seconds ago! Ororo held it up, her face flat except for a touch of annoyance. Logan made a grab for it and she flicked it away, narrowing her eyes at him.

Logan glared at her. "That was rude."

"Smoke on your own time," she shot back.

"If I hadn't been sent down here then I _would_ be smoking on my own time," he said irritably, scowling down at her. "And that was my last cigar." Pushing away from the rock, he headed right into the chaos. He staggered the first few steps, still a little jarred from his crash landing, but quickly regained his footing.

He wore a blank expression as he calmly walked through the wreckage, hardly flinching as a nearby greyhound bus exploded. He heard Ororo call out his name, but he paid it no attention. He needed to get out of the mansion, get away from _her_ before something… less than ideal happened.

That meant that he needed to end this training session, sooner rather than later. He didn't like admitting it, but they'd be here for a little while longer if they let the students have a crack at this mission alone again.

"It's getting closer," Marie shouted over the chaos.

Logan turned to look at the target – two eyes bright like headlights and the rest too dark to see in the shadows. But it was obviously a Sentinel. And after seeing the real thing in broad daylight, the one that was currently cloaked in darkness wasn't bothersome in the least.

"Come on," Ororo shouted, joining them and trying to get the students back on track. "Let's keep moving!"

_Not this time_, he thought. Even with her leading them, it was going to take longer than he liked for them to finish this. "Hey Tin Man, come here."

Peter took a few steps in Logan's direction before stopping, eyeing Ororo warily. "Yeah?"

"You remember these guys, right?" he asked casually, extending his claws. "How's your throwing arm?"

"Logan," Ororo snapped. "We work as a _team!_"

He nodded to her nonchalantly. Sometimes teamwork took too long. "Yeah, good luck with that." He turned to Peter, who was now completely covered in his organic metal. "Throw me." Peter hesitated before throwing another look in Ororo's direction. Logan growled. "_NOW_," he commanded.

"Dammit, Logan! Don't do this!" Ororo shouted. The almost pleading tone in her voice would've made Logan stop – or at least hesitate – if he'd been able to. But Peter had already grabbed an arm and a leg and was spinning Logan into the air, straight at the giant robot.

Claws and arms fully extended, he roared as he flew towards his target, channeling his fear into adrenaline. Two well placed slices took its head off easily. But the force that he'd been thrown at the robot sent its body falling back, while its head pitched forward. And since they were in the training room, while the head looked quite solid, it was nonexistent. "Son of a…"

Logan fell the fifteen feet to the ground, twisting his body in a move that Kurt had once taught him so that he'd roll harmlessly when he made it to the ground. In one fluid motion that surprised even him, he tumbled to the ground, somersaulted forward, and was on his feet, walking around the severed head of the Sentinel to meet the other X-Men before they had the chance to worry about his fate.

Peter and Bobby looked impressed, as usual. Kitty and Marie rolled their eyes and shrugged it off, and finally his gaze landed on Ororo. She looked like she very much wanted to snap him in half.

Logan retracted his claws and addressed Ororo directly. "You find a way to market this to Hollywood and the theme parks, you're collective fortune is made."

"Simulation complete," the computer chirped. Logan nodded to his younger team mates in satisfaction. "Class dismissed." _About damn time,_ he added silently.

Ororo was the first out the door as the simulation dissolved, replaced by the institutional illumination of the Danger Room, an empty room the size of a commercial jumbo jetliner hanger. Unclipping her cape from her wrists and huffing angrily, Ororo hardly spared Logan a backwards glance.

"Hey, Colossus, nice throw," Logan commented, not daring to tell him that he threw like a girl. Ororo was a girl, after all, and she'd flung him a good ten feet like he weighed no more than a ragdoll. And, judging by the way she was visibly trying to keep a leash on her anger, she'd do it again if he wasn't careful.

The second they stepped into the hall, Logan watched Ororo as she began pulling her gloves off, finger by finger.

"What the hell was that," she asked tightly.

No one needed to ask who she was talking to, and the four younger X-Men beat feet for the locker room without having to be told

"Danger Room sess – "

She'd taken her gloves off completely and turned to slap him with them. It didn't hurt, but it startled the hell out of him. He would've laughed if not for the look in her eyes. Was she _so_ angry that she couldn't touch him without doing him serious harm?

…

He could believe that.

"You know what I mean," she snapped, turning around and continuing down the hall.

"Storm – "

"No," she said flatly. "Look, you can't just change the rules when you feel like it. We're trying to run a school here. _I'm_ trying to teach them something."

Logan tried not to notice that Kitty's ear was sticking out of the wall behind them. Obviously she was relaying their conversation to her team mates, but Logan didn't entirely mind, so he said nothing. "I taught them something," he said instead.

"Oh, I don't doubt _that_," she snapped. "They're mainly adolescents, Logan. Teenagers? At this age, especially when they have powers, they're hardwired to act like fools. I don't need you encouraging them. Shadowcat is already acting as recklessly as you do, and Rogue isn't far behind…"

"I've – "

"And if you'd read the syllabus, you'd know that it was a _defensive_ exercise. Evasive maneuvers…"

He was tired of trying to reason with her. "Best defense is a good offense," he countered in an aloof tone, but then thought better of it. "Or is it the other way around?"

"I'll try to remember that for my next class," she replied darkly, her tone pure acid. She finally turned to him, a tired expression in her eyes. "This isn't a game, Logan."

She was tired of him, he could tell. Logan didn't bother with a smart remark. She'd made more than one valid point, and Logan was willing to back off on this one so long as he could get the _hell_ out of the mansion already! "Hey, I'm just a sub. You got a problem, talk to Scott."

He turned to leave and made it all of three steps before her voice stopped him. "And what if the problem I have isn't with Scott?"

He slowly turned back to her. She'd followed him and was again standing across from him, arms across her chest and eyes dark. She seemed to be examining him closely, so he stayed silent. "This isn't you," she finally said, in a quiet voice. Too fast for him to react, she drew back and punched him square in the chest, sending him flying back a few good feet and into the hard wall. He gasped as the air was knocked from his lungs for the second time in about ten minutes. "What is your fucking problem?" she hissed. "Tell me why you're doing this."

His temper momentarily flared in response, and he was sure that it showed because for the very first time Logan saw a brief flicker of hesitation in her eyes. Ignoring it, he opened his mouth to tell her that _she_ was obviously the one who had a problem if she had to punch him in the chest, but he couldn't form the words. And he knew that he couldn't form the words because that wasn't true. _He_ had the problem. That damn feeling that the apocalypse was near was having an adverse effect on him.

He took a deep breath, feeling on edge about confiding in her. Something inside was throwing up warning flags, and he was more than a little tempted to listen. But he knew that he could trust her and was able to push the thoughts aside. "Something doesn't feel right."

"About us?" she clarified, her eyes suddenly razor sharp. "You're doing a superb job of keeping it wrong, if that's the case."

"No, I don't mean us. Something…" He raked his fingers through his hair, and Ororo's look turned from hostile to curious. "I don't really know how to explain it. You know how animals get nervous when bad weather is coming their way?" She nodded, listening intently. "I have that feeling, in the pit of my stomach. And I feel restless because I don't know where it's coming from. And I can't go look because I have no choice but to stay here."

Ororo nodded again. "You don't _have_ to stay."

"It's a _feeling_ I have," he clarified. Despite the fact that part of him wanted to leave for good, the way she so easily suggested that he do it was unnerving. But he let it be for the moment. Aside from a quick ride on Scott's motorcycle, Logan wasn't going anywhere. "Not a feeling that I'm being forced to stay, but that I _need_ to. That I'll be needed."

"And I'm guessing that this storm has nothing to do with weather."

He glared at her, thinking for a split second that she was poking fun at his feeling of impending doom. But her expression was absolutely serious. "No, it doesn't."

"Is that why you've been getting worse," she asked. When he opened his mouth to defend himself, she shook her head. "Don't even try. I've noticed the steady change. Almost everyone has. Has the feeling been getting stronger?"

Damn, she knew him like the back of her hand. "Yeah, it has."

She looked away from him thoughtfully, a worried expression slowly appearing on her face. "I haven't felt that way for very long, but I've been feeling a bit… restless too. I can ask the professor if he's noticed anything out of the ordinary…" She looked back up at him. "In the meantime" – she shoved him back again. It wasn't a violent action. It wasn't even very hard, but it was enough to get her point across – "why don't you stop taking it out on me."

Without waiting for an answer, she walked off and disappeared into the women's changing room. Logan sighed heavily as he made his way back up to his room. This _really_ wasn't how he'd wanted to spend his day off…


	76. Won't Let Go

OKAY! Time to get the ball rolling with these faster updates! This chapter is a bit on the short side, but they can't all be extra super long. And as always, thank you to SuniGyrl for your input!

Enjoy all!

* * *

As Logan headed for his room, he heard Marie and Bobby fussing heatedly, which wasn't out of the ordinary these days. Still, Logan was in no mood to hear it, and gave them both a sharp look to tell them to keep it down as he continued on his way to look for Scott.

_At least I'm not the only one with problems_, he thought, then instantly regretted it. Just because he was miserable, that didn't mean that he needed to wish it on others. Maybe later, after he'd cooled down, he'd go find Marie and see if she wanted to vent a little. It was clear that she couldn't – or rather, wouldn't – vent to Kitty anymore, and Lee…

Lee hardly talked to anyone anymore, and it had all started with John's late night visits. For a good two months, he'd come to the school nearly every night to see her. She'd been visibly tired during the day, falling asleep just about everywhere; in her desk, in a combat stance, in her lunch…

Almost everyone had believed her excuses of being a night owl and having nightmares at night, but Logan had known that it had to be deeper than that. When he'd discovered that the teens were meeting at night, he'd made it a point to check up on them every few hours, just in case John tried anything shifty. He didn't have to wonder if John would hurt Lee; the way he treated her spoke of someone that was prepared to hurt himself before her. But if Logan knew of their meetings, then Magneto _had_ to know about them. If that were the case, what was to stop him from asking John to slip into the mansion and steal something quickly? Or perhaps to spy on certain members of the team?

Still, despite her fatigue, Lee was clearly happy whenever she rushed out to see John in the middle of the night. Her visible elation was one of the reasons that Logan hadn't bothered stopping her. Though, her sleep deprivation had turned her into something of a short fuse with other students. She was much more impatient than usual in combat class, despite the fact that she was getting better at an astronomical rate. The only explanation for that was that John might be teaching her different ways to calm herself and remove emotion from her fight. Yet another reason that Logan didn't harass Lee about John. How could he, when he was teaching her better control of her powers?

But those days were over. John wasn't visiting anymore and, as far as Logan knew, the visits had ceased without warning. Lee didn't have a reason to stay up at all hours of the night, so she was wide awake and something of a ticking bomb. Where most of the students had simply left her to herself before, now they downright avoided her, lest she demonstrate just how short her fuse was.

Logan caught sight of Scott and pushed his thoughts aside for later examination as he approached the volatile mutant. He was dressed to go on a motorcycle ride, and Logan damned the powers that be for that. _A jog it is_, he mentally grumbled.

But his displeasure was set aside when he caught sight of the backpack slung over Scott's shoulder, as well as the empty look on his face. Logan knew that look. It was the look of someone that had something to do, and wouldn't be stopped by the devil himself. Still, Logan knew he would probably kick his own ass for the rest of the day – or the rest of the week, depending on how many clothes Scott had packed – if he didn't at least try to talk to Scott.

But how the hell was he supposed to start this conversation? "Hey, Scott, they were looking for you downstairs. You didn't show." _An acceptable beginning_…

"Obviously," Scott replied tonelessly, not stopping or even slowing as he brushed right by Logan. "What do you care?"

Logan tried to bite back the annoyance that was already starting to surface. "Well, for starters, I had to cover your ass."

"I didn't ask you to," he said simply, stopping and turning to Logan with his arms crossed.

"No," Logan agreed, matching his stance. It was clear that this wasn't going to be a companionable conversation, but rather a testosterone throw down. Scott hadn't been Logan's biggest fan ever since he and Ororo had initially broken up, and that dislike had multiplied ten-fold after he'd been informed of what his response to Ororo's apology had been.

He often wondered if she'd embellished when she'd told Scott of what had happened between them, but he never dwelled on the thought for long. The only reason Logan hadn't retaliated was because, in the back of his mind, he was relieved that she was venting to someone instead of bottling it all up. "You didn't ask. The professor did. I was just passing through."

"So pass through, Logan. Isn't that what you do best?"

Logan held himself in check, not letting on how deeply that statement cut. Would he always have that hanging over his head? He'd left _once_, damn it! For a month and a half! And he'd been back for over a year! "Hey, look." He grabbed Scott's wrist, pulling him back as he tried to leave.

The taller man looked down at his wrist before his gaze slowly and threateningly traveled up to Logan's eyes. It was a gesture that clearly said, _**please** give me a reason to fight you._ "I don't like being touched," he said flatly.

Logan let go. He didn't want to start a fight. Not with Scott. Softening his tone, he said, "I know how you feel."

"Don't," Scott immediately snapped.

"When Jean died – "

Scott gave Logan a quick shove. "I said _don't_!"

Logan's mouth snapped shut. He wanted to tell Scott that he too felt partly responsible for Jean's death. He too missed her, and he too wished that something – anything – could be done to bring her back. He wanted to tell Scott that he still had nightmares of her death too, some of them quite vivid. But Scott didn't want to hear it. Logan was, however, going to say what needed to be said. This had to stop. "Maybe it's time for us to move on," he told Scott. "We can't keep hurting like this. It'll kill us."

Scott inclined his head slightly. "_We_ need to move on?" He nodded over Logan's shoulder and he turned to see what was there. Ororo was standing halfway down the hall, watching them with a tense expression. It was clear that she wasn't eavesdropping, but rather watching in case a fight broke out.

After a moment of staring Logan down, she pushed herself off of the wall she was leaned against and made her way down the hall away from the two men. Logan turned back to Scott, only to find that he too was already halfway down the hall. He turned and shrugged, pointing down the hall at Ororo. "Not everyone heals as fast as you do, Logan. I was under the impression that you already _had_ moved on."

The jab was lost on him for a moment, but when it dawned on him what Scott was actually saying, Logan stood paralyzed. Was he kidding? Did he honestly think that Logan had drowned his sorrow over Jean's death by being with Ororo? The thought of using her in such a way was sickening!

Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Perhaps he was reading too much into Scott's statement. Or perhaps Scott was reading too much into Logan's statement. Hell, _someone _had to be reading too much into _something_, because if _Bobby_ – of all people – had noticed Logan's preference to Ororo over a year ago, then something wasn't adding up correctly.

Logan suddenly realized that he was pinching his nose and upon thinking of the woman he'd picked that trait up from, he scowled and flung himself into his room. So much for his day off!

He opened the window and stared outside and the beautiful sunny day. There were plenty of clouds, but they were all the whitest white, lighter than air against a sapphire blue sky. Though the weather didn't fit his mood, Logan would be damned if he stayed inside for another minute. Turning away from the window, he got dressed into clothes fit for such an activity. He glanced once more out the window before slipping out of his room, but froze in his tracks.

The beautiful day was gone. Rather than a soft breeze, the wind was whipping enthusiastically across the lawn, scattering leaves and straining a few tree branches. The white clouds had been replaced by dark clouds that swirled angrily around thin slivers of lightning. Even a few low, threatening rumbles of thunder could be heard in the distance.

"Fan-_fucking_-tastic," he grumbled, slamming his door shut and changing again. Though he usually didn't mind getting wet, jogging in the rain didn't appeal on this particular day. And obviously _she_ had been the one to darken the sky, so the rain was sure to start coming down the second he set foot outside. Or perhaps she was upset about something that had nothing to do with him and her emotions were getting the best of her.

_Wishful thinking,_ he thought. When he'd finished changing again, he contemplated going for a ride in one of Scott's cars. Considering the mood he was in, the other man probably wouldn't care…

But as he searched around for his jacket with an annoyed huff, he saw that the sky was once again crystal blue and the sun was shining. He approached the window with a scandalized glare. "You hate me that much," he asked flatly to a passing cloud, wondering if she could somehow hear him.

He received no response, and turned his back on the window with a growl. Caged. He felt _caged!_ Scott had his motorcycle, Ororo apparently wanted him indoors…

"Fuck that," he hissed, forgetting about his jacket and making his way down to the garage. He was _not_ going to be kept inside the mansion by Ororo's foul temper. She'd better pull him back inside with a goddamn tornado, because nothing short of that was keeping him inside. In fact, he was going to go for a ride in Ororo's pristine Dodge Charger, just to spite her.

_"Logan…"_

_Absolutely not_, he thought viciously. He could almost feel Xavier mentally recoil from him, but he didn't care. If the old man was as powerful as he said he was, then he ought to be able to read that Logan was dangerously close to breaking something if he didn't get some time to himself.

Or maybe Xavier, like Logan, just didn't give a damn.

_"I'd like to see you in my office, please…_"

"_For **what? !**_" Logan snapped at the ceiling. A few of the students in the hall paused to stare at him, but most moved on quickly and gave him a wide berth. They knew from experience that Xavier contacted them from across the school in such a manner, and one didn't need to be a genius to see that the Wolverine was in the mood for _no one_.

_"There's someone here that I think you ought to meet,"_ was the calm reply.

Hissing a slew of curses guaranteed to make a sailor blush, Logan turned on his heel and made his way to Xavier's office. _This better be good, Charley,_ Logan warned. _This better be fucking epic_…


	77. Disease

Another chapter for my loyal readers. SuniGyrl, you already know what it is… :)

Enjoy!

* * *

Halfway down the hall from his destination, Logan caught sight of Ororo pushing Xavier's wheelchair inside his office. "Hank?" she gasped excitedly.

"Ororo! Charles!" a deep, booming voice exclaimed. Curious, Logan picked up his pace and glanced around the corner just in time to see Ororo practically throw herself into the arms of yet another blue mutant. But this one was a far cry from either Mystique or Kurt. Where they'd both been lean, this Hank character was extremely thick. While Kurt had opted for baggy, comfortable clothing and Mystique for stark nudity, this mutant wore a very expensive looking business suit. And he didn't smell like blueberries or - thank the heavens - sulfur. Hank smelled like lake water, though not the disgusting kind. He also had hair, and a _lot_ of it. So much that Logan wondered if his bulkiness was due to muscle or fur.

Could _he_ be the reason that the DVDs of _Beauty and the Beast_ were among the most popular in the library? He'd always wondered why the older girls watched it so much...

But he stopped his musings when Ororo gave a delighted laugh as she hugged Hank fiercely. It looked like she was snuggling a lion, and she seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it. "I _love_ what you've done with your hair," she said, raking her fingers through his hair as she's often done to Logan.

_And Tony_, he reminded himself sharply. Ororo had a lot of close friends that happened to be men. If he got jealous every single time he saw one of her friends, their happily ever after was going to be a long and rocky one.

"You too – what there is of it," the fuzzy mutant returned, not even reaching up to _point_ at Ororo's hair. Logan's mouth twisted, wondering if Hank knew that Ororo didn't like her hair being touched very much, or if he just didn't want to be as friendly. The latter suggested that they weren't very well acquainted, while the former suggested that they were _very_ well acquainted. In the year that Logan had spent with her, he'd learned that Ororo didn't much like her hair touched unless she was being kissed or having sex.

And _that_ thought did nothing to quell his already rising jealousy. Despite the fact that Logan so callously baited her and that part of him wanted her to suffer a little, he couldn't deny that he was still in love with her.

Ororo smiled widely and ran a hand carefully through her own hair. "Thank you," she said, her cheeks turning the lightest shade of crimson.

That thought coupled with her reaction to his compliment truly made Logan's blood boil.

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice," Hank said, all formality as he addressed Xavier.

They shook hands, and Xavier seemed every bit as pleased to see him as Ororo was. "Henry, you are always welcome here. You're a part of this place, as much as anyone."

_And it seems as though he can come and go as he pleases_, Logan thought bitterly, hoping that Xavier could hear him. _Probably without being accused of 'passing through'._

"I have news," Hank announced. Apparently, this wasn't a social call.

"Is it Eric?" Xavier asked, his tone changing slightly, as though fearing the worst.

"No, though we have been making some progress on that front." Logan scoffed at that. Hank was _clearly_ a diplomat of some kind, and Logan had never been particularly fond of them. "Mystique was recently apprehended." He scoffed again. In his book, four months ago didn't qualify as 'recently'.

"Yes, I remember that," Xavier said thoughtfully. "That was around the time that I sent Ororo and Logan to the gala in Georgia thinking that Magneto was going to stir up trouble."

_Perfect intro_, Logan thought. He walked in and gave Hank a long look up and down, openly sizing the other mutant up. While his skin and hair were a familiar electric blue, his eyes weren't that frightening banana yellow, but rather the same blue as his skin. "Who's the furball," he asked, casually leaning his weight on the doorframe, the picture of nonchalance.

Hank turned to him and smiled in a way that Logan could only describe as politically polite. He bristled a bit at the nickname, but it appeared that he had manners. Ororo, on the other hand, glared at Logan openly as the mutant rattled off his name and title. "Hank McCoy, Secretary of Mutant Affairs."

It all went in one ear and out the other. "Right, right, _secretary_." The way he said the title, it clearly wasn't a compliment. He strolled into the room, pointedly ignoring Ororo's sharp eyes. "Nice suit."

Xavier motioned to him. "Henry, this is Logan. He's – "

"Wolverine," Hank finished. "I've heard quite a lot about you."

Logan raised an eyebrow. "You think so?"

"I hear you're quite the animal."

"Look who's talking." Perhaps it was a cheap shot, but the man set himself up for it.

Hank's diplomatic smile fell into something of a scowl and Logan decided that he didn't like that look. Perhaps he was a politician, but everyone had their breaking points, and Hank seemed to be a bit… sensitive about his appearance. A throaty growl slipped past his blue lips just as Ororo interrupted the display of testosterone.

"How are they planning on keeping Mystique," she asked. "You know that Magneto's going to raise hell to get to her, right?" Her calm expression was focused on Hank's frown, but it didn't escape Logan's notice that her eyes were a little bit brighter as she watched him, as though concentrating on him. Logan didn't know what to make of that for a moment, but when it finally came to him, it was all he could do to smother a grin of victory.

Hank's obvious dislike of Logan's statement had been apparent to more than just him, and that growl had suggested that he wanted to prove just how animal-like he could be. Ororo had seen that, and she'd steered the conversation back to Hank's original topic to avoid a fight. No one else seemed to notice – not even her – but it was her way of saying that Logan was off limits. He was hers.

Perhaps it was her way of saying that _she_ was the only one that could mess Logan up, but he'd take what he could get.

"Magneto's not the problem," Hank said, turning his gaze back to Xavier. "At least, not our most pressing one. A major pharmaceutical company has developed a mutant antibody; a way to suppress the mutant 'X' gene."

"Suppress?" Logan asked, after an awkward silence, not quite following.

Hank looked at him, all hostility gone. "Permanently," he clarified. "They're calling it a cure."

Logan snorted in disgust, which effectively took care of his opinion. There was a moment of silence as Xavier and Ororo digested that information a bit more. "Well, that's ridiculous," Ororo said flatly. "You can't _cure_ being a mutant any more than you could _cure_ the color of my skin!"

Hank winced. "Well, scientifically speaking – "

"Cures are for diseases," she snapped, raw rage and contempt lacing her words. "Since when did we become a disease? I've been called many things in my life, Henry, but a _disease_? How can anybody, in their right – "

"Storm." The three looked down at Xavier. He was listening, but not with his ears. "They're announcing it now."

Logan spotted the remote and turned the TV on, going straight to Fox News. A very rich looking man stood at a podium behind a building that clearly labeled itself as Worthington Labs, on Alcatraz Island. The scrolls at the bottom of the screen read that the man speaking was Warren Worthington II. "They've been called saints and sinners," he announced to the assembled crush of media. "They've committed atrocities and been the victims of atrocities themselves. They've been labeled monsters, and not without reason."

"Propaganda bullshit," Logan muttered under his breath before he could stop himself. He heard Ororo's teeth grind at that, but she stayed silent.

"These so-called monsters – mutants – are people just like us," he continued. "They are our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters, our _children_." His pitch rose almost imperceptibly at the word 'children', and Logan could only figure that he had some sort of personal stake in this. He certainly didn't look like a scientist, but rather the financier of the whole thing.

"Their affliction is nothing more than a disease; a corruption of healthy cellular activity. But I stand here today to tell you there's hope. There is a way to eradicate their suffering and the suffering of those who love them."

Worthington held up two slides, a DNA helix on one slide and a young, bald boy on the other. "A few years ago, we found a mutant with the most extraordinary ability – to repress and even _reverse_ the powers of those other mutants who came close to him. Now, after much research and experimentation, we've found the means for _all_ mutants to get 'close' to him."

He set down the photos and held up a vile of what appeared to be a clear liquid, pausing while the crowd before him erupted in flashbulbs. "At this site, once the world's most famous prison, will now be the source of freedom for all mutants who _choose_ it. Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present the answer to mutation. Finally, we have a cure."

His audience politely applauded him and before Logan could use the remote, Ororo stomped forward and turned the TV off, shaking her head. She began pacing like a caged tiger, radiating violent fury that impressed even Logan. He sat himself on the corner of Xavier's desk and out of her way, as she looked ready to hit something.

After only four or five laps, she stopped and took a deep breath, sitting herself down on the couch that Hank had since occupied. She pinched the bridge of her nose, possibly in an attempt to get a leash on her anger. Logan turned away from the sight of Hank gently touching her shoulder, opting instead to stare out the window. "_That'll_ certainly bring Magneto out of hiding," Logan muttered to himself.

"Does Emma know about this?" Xavier asked.

"The Massachusetts Academy was my first stop," Hank replied. "She and the rest of her staff have been informed of this development."

Logan looked between Xavier and Hank. He didn't want to be too nosy, but who the hell was Emma?

"Emma Frost is the headmaster of the Massachusetts Academy," Xavier replied as though Logan had asked out loud. "She runs a boarding school for mutant children, much like this one. Though, she and her staff have slightly different methods of teaching." He turned to Hank with an unreadable expression. "What do they think of this?"

"Emma and Sean were clearly disappointed. Remy was much more…" – he threw a cautious look in Ororo's direction – "_thorough_ in expressing his opinion."

"Well that's new," Ororo commented dispassionately. "For once, there's something that the Cajun and I agree on."

Ignoring her comment, Hank continued. "I told her that I was coming to see you and she asked that you contact her as soon as possible."

"Absolutely," Xavier agreed.

"Who would even _want_ this cure?" Ororo snapped. "I mean, what kind of coward would take it just to fit in?"

Logan's temper flared for a very different reason at that statement. He could understand her displeasure, but he doubted that the cure had been made with cowards in mind. His first thought, naturally, had been of Marie. Something as natural as skin to skin contact had been denied her for years, her mutation too powerful and dangerous to allow it. Why _wouldn't_ she want the cure?

And Lee, though she seemed to be getting better control of her powers, was visibly growing tired of always having to keep her emotions in check. When she got too excited, the things that exploded weren't always as harmless as a pillow or a soda can.

"_I've been called many things in my life, Henry, but a _**disease**_?"_

The reminder of that statement gave him pause. She was disgusted by the mutants that were ashamed of what their powers made them, mutants who would do anything to fit in and have society's approval. She didn't see mutations for their possible shortcomings, but rather as gifts that ought to be cherished because it made one unique.

"I understand your concerns Ororo," Hank said patiently. "That's why I'm here. But do you really think that it's cowardice to _save_ oneself from persecution? Not all of us fit in so easily. You don't shed on the furniture." He chuckled lightly, but Logan heard the underlying bitterness of someone who was determined to embrace what he'd been given as a gift rather than a curse. In Logan's book, Hank's stock went up about ten points. Still, the guilt trip that he'd just given Ororo was unnecessary. He had to know that his comment would make her feel bad.

And his tactic seemed to work, as Ororo deflated a little. "I'm sorry, Hank. I shouldn't – "

"Don't apologize," Logan snapped, one small step removed from a snarl. "He knew damn well what you meant by that statement. And for all we know, the government help cook this up." He stood and began pacing the length of the room, the words spilling out of him before he had the chance to rein in his temper.

"Let's be rational for a second and consider the _civil liberties_ side of things. Do parents have the right to impose this cure on their kids? Employers on their employees? Suppose someone decides mutants are a public safety issue and society's better off without us."

Xavier and Hank stared at him in undisguised shock, while Ororo mutely nodded her head every now and then. Clearly, Hank hadn't expected a _Wolverine_ to be as intelligent as the strategist in front of him. Xavier, on the other hand, should've known better. As many times as he'd been inside Logan's mind, the things that he was saying shouldn't be so surprising to him. Logan bristled as he continued, going into a full on rant.

"Or better yet, let's turn the tables – if you can make a drug to erase the gene, how about one to _create_ it? You thought nukes were scary? How about _us_? Why bomb an army when Storm can drown it? Why bother with negotiations with other countries when Xavier can sway them all? And what then? The feds decide – for our own 'protection' – maybe we belong on a reservation, where we're available if needed but can be kept isolated from the general population? Pandora's box has _nothing_ on this!"

Hank straightened himself on the couch as Logan turned his accusing eyes to him. The shocked expression was gone, and he'd clearly made his peace with the fact that Logan had a mind that wasn't solely devoted to gore and violence. "I can assure you," Hank said pointedly, "the government had nothing to do with this."

Logan looked at him pityingly. "Yeah, well, I've heard that before, bub. Verbatim, in fact. I also heard him emphasize that the cure is for mutants that choose it. But mark my words; the government will find a way to sink their teeth into Worthington Labs and turn that cure into a weapon long before we give them reason to. I'll bet they'll even say that it was a precautionary measure."

"Consider your words marked," Hank said stiffly. "But might I add, my boy, that I've been fighting for mutant's rights since before you had claws. I'll personally see to it that proper protocol is followed."

Logan turned to Xavier with a raised brow. "Did he just call me 'boy'," he asked. He hadn't paid much attention after hearing that. "Hank, you're, what? Forty? _Maybe._ If Charlie here told you so much about me, you should know that I'm easily three times your age, _son_."

Peppermint lightly tinted the air as Marie burst into the room, a smile so bright that it might've eclipsed the sun. Logan couldn't remember seeing Marie quite so excited in a while, and he had an idea as to the source of her happiness. "Is it true? They can cure us? They can cure _me_?"

Xavier offered her a tight smile. "Yes, Rogue. It appears to be true."

Logan bit back the urge to say anything. She was a big girl – a young woman who'd recently turned twenty-one. Despite how Logan wanted her to hold onto her innocence, she ought to know what she wanted without needing permission or reassurance. But Ororo didn't seem to see it the same way. Or perhaps she just wanted to make up for what she'd thought of as failing John.

"No, professor. They _can't_ cure us." She looked Marie dead in the eye and walked right up to her. Marie shifted uncomfortably under Ororo's harsh gaze, but the other woman didn't seem to notice. "You want to know why? Because there's nothing to cure. Nothing is wrong with you. Or _any_ of us, for that matter. You might as well cure Mozart of writing music, or Da Vinci of the ability to make machines, or Edison, or Archimedes, or Shakespeare!" She looked pointedly around the room, her eyes resting on Logan for half a second longer than the others.

But perhaps it was because Logan was scowling at her. She had no right to judge Marie for wanting her life to be less complicated. Not everyone saw their powers as a gift as Xavier and Ororo did, nor did everyone view themselves as superior to humans for their mutation, as Magneto and John did. A few like Marie, Lee, and Logan – and possibly Hank too – had viewed them as a curse or some form of punishment.

Ororo tried to take Marie's hands, but the younger woman flinched away. Logan knew that Ororo's words had fallen on rock. She'd heard, but she wouldn't listen.

"It's up to you, Rogue," Logan said. His eyes stayed locked with Ororo's for an instant longer before he finally turned to Marie. "You say you're a grown woman, so you need make the choice."

"There's nothing wrong with her," Ororo snapped.

"Did I say that there _was_ anything wrong with her," Logan snapped back. "It's not your decision."

"I want it," Marie said firmly.

Logan nodded. "So go get it." Ororo narrowed her eyes at him and took a step forward. But Logan was far from in the mood to be talked at. "Don't even," he snapped, holding up a hand for her to stop advancing. He'd had enough for one day. His alone time had been delayed for long enough, and he was getting downright pissed. "Let me guess, you think that I don't have her best interests at heart. You think that I don't give a good god damn what she does because I don't give a damn about anyone but myself.

"But if I didn't care, why would I encourage her to do what _she_ felt was right for _her_? Why would I want her to think it through and decide for herself rather than have you try to brainwash her into thinking that keeping her powers is the right thing to do? Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. But I sure as hell can't be credited with thinking it through!" Here, he threw a pointed glare in Xavier and Hank's direction. Truthfully, they were the ones that seemed to think that he was incapable of intelligent thought. Ororo was just looking for someone to lash out at in her fury, and so was Logan.

"God forbid _anyone_ give me credit for knowledge of any kind. After all, claws come out of my fists and I have a habit of losing my temper. It makes me an animal, right Hank?"

Xavier sighed heavily. "Logan, perhaps we may have misjudged - "

"_Perhaps_?" he yelled, his eyes wide with disbelief. "_May have_? I've been misjudged by you and everyone else here ever since I joined this turkey outfit!"

Ignoring _everyone_, Logan stormed out of the office and went straight down to the garage. Xavier tried to contact him a few times, but Logan viciously shut him out, trying to imagine that his mind was as impenetrable as his adamantium laced skull. It worked, and Logan was left in golden silence as he got into Ororo's car and tore out of the garage like a bat out of hell.


	78. In Motion

SuniGurl, your help is always appreciated.

Enjoy everyone!

* * *

Logan avoided absolutely everyone for the next few days. He wanted to cool off, and was sure that everyone would appreciate him doing it on his own. Even when his three girls tried to get him to talk, it was all he could do to tell them to get the hell out of his room in a courteous tone.

Scott was gone – likely to Jean's watery grave, though Logan was sure that the man would've left him alone anyhow – and neither Ororo nor Xavier attempted to draw Logan out of his dark mood. Xavier had politely informed him that McCoy had personally gone to Alcatraz Island to see about the young mutant that they were keeping there and what the cure could do, but Logan hadn't yet received any further updates.

That feeling of foreboding was getting stronger by the minute, and Logan didn't know what to do with himself. At one point, the thought of contacting Tony Stark had greatly appealed to him. He'd give a quick greeting to Pepper and proceed to curse out Tony and his full of shit 'wait-and-see' method. Logan would get to blow off some steam, and Tony would likely be laughing his ass off on the other line. _Everybody wins…_

And then he heard Xavier give a hair-raising scream of pain. The sound was a spike through Logan's skull, a lance of pain not even his healing factor could mitigate. The electricity surged around him as well - probably in the entire building - and beneath the pain in his mind, Logan could hear a female voice frantically whispering, _"Scott Scott Scott Scott…"_

He threw himself into the hallway, staggering because his head was so screwed up that he could hardly walk straight. He heard cries and whimpers and more than a few sobs from every direction. The halls were crowding rapidly with students, some holding their heads in pain, a few looked nauseous to the point of vomiting… All were scared and demanding answers that he didn't have or comfort that he was ill-equipped to offer.

Shaking his head in an attempt to block out the pain, Logan bolted down the hall and made for the stairs at a dead sprint, hardly having to tell the children to move out of his way or get run over. He hopped down the stairs three at a time, and fell in step beside Ororo, who was able to keep pace even as Logan was sprinting.

"What happened?" she shouted over the noise inside their minds.

"No clue," Logan responded, rounding a corner and bursting into Xavier's office.

"Professor," Ororo called, while simultaneously from Logan, "You okay?"

He was facing away from them, but even Logan could tell that he was pale as a sheet of paper and trembling terribly. "I'm fine," he assured them.

Logan absolutely didn't believe that. He could smell blood, and after a quick scan of the room he saw a badly stained handkerchief in the trash. A bloody nose…?

_"Forebrain hemorrhages,"_ Xavier supplied. _"Not a good sign in a telepath…"_

He trailed off, and suddenly all three were seized with another wave of pain. Xavier shook harder, Logan felt like his skull was being drilled into with a rusty screwdriver, and Ororo was gasping as though she couldn't breathe. After several agonizing seconds, it finally passed and Xavier gave them a quarter profile. "Get to Alkali Lake," he ordered in a tone he rarely used with either of them. It mandated absolute, immediate obedience. No back talk, no bullshit.

Before Logan could assure himself that Xavier would be fine, Ororo latched onto his arm and pulled him out of the room. They bolted down to the hanger and got the _Blackbird_ prepped and airborne in record time.

Naturally, Ororo piloted the jet by herself, shooting almost straight up once they cleared the launch bay. From there, she cleared the atmosphere at a speed that would bring them to their destination in barely fifteen minutes. Neither said a word, as Ororo was busy piloting and Logan was trying not to lose the large lunch he'd eaten not half an hour ago.

When they were finally at a cruising speed, Ororo punched a few buttons and got up from her seat without a word. Logan's grip on the armrest tightened. Though he'd gotten used to flying in the jet, he still didn't like it. Especially when the damn thing was on auto-pilot.

Ororo paused hesitantly, then looked down at Logan with an expression that was both annoyed and (possibly) concerned. "I'm just changing," she announced. "I'll be less than a minute."

Logan nodded, though he didn't look back to see if she was still there. His ears, however, picked up the rapid rustle of fabric. True to her word, she dropped back into the pilot's seat and was strapped in before a full minute passed. She'd changed into a body suit that, although not leather, looked every bit as effective. Both at protecting her skin and fitting her form.

Logan swallowed hard and kept his eyes forward. Now wasn't the time to get into the situation between them. Obviously, they were both at fault for the position they were in. A large part of him still felt like she was more at fault than him, but he wouldn't be surprised if she felt the same. If he'd just swallowed his pride and apologized like she'd expected, they might be together now…

But Logan was thankful that he hadn't given in. What they'd had was – while nice – an illusion. Now that he'd had his eyes opened to just how unreal it had been, he found himself wondering what the real thing would feel like. Possibly like waking up from a dream. Perhaps it wouldn't be quite as happy or easy, but certainly more intense and less like a pleasant dream. It would be something that he could actually believe, and so he might not feel as undeserving of her love as he had in the past. They'd be equals.

Logan was torn from such thoughts when, just that quickly, they began their descent. Though it was probably a smooth transition into deeper atmosphere by Ororo's standards, to Logan the jet's jerky movements were reminiscent of a bucking mule. Though they were just about to land, he busied himself with his harness, growing less thrilled with every incident of turbulence.

"Hold on," she muttered, as though it pained her to show him any kind of compassion. She threw the _Blackbird_ into a tight descending spiral that pinned Logan to his chair and made him wonder if she was trying to land the damn aircraft on its pointy nose. She flattened out at a hundred meters, shifting to vertical flight mode and skimming the tree line like they were flying a helicopter. Though her flying sometimes made him uncomfortable, Logan couldn't deny that she was an exceptional pilot.

Logan had taken his turn in the simulator, so he knew that he could take the controls if the need ever arose – though the thought of doing so sickened him. But Ororo handled the jet as though it were a part of her. She could dance it through maneuvers that others wouldn't dream of trying – except maybe Scott.

Before he had time to contemplate the meaning of the voice he'd heard saying Scott's name, Ororo eased the aircraft down from the sky and into the thickest fog Logan had ever seen. He tried not to show his extreme discomfort of the blind landing, but supposed that she was using her powers to 'feel' through the fog for the best place to land the jet. It gave a soft jolt to signal their landing and both of them got out of the jet without delay.

With his first step off the ramp, Logan knew it was bad. Every one of his senses was screaming in alarm – his skin was crawling, he couldn't see his own nose through the dense fog, the air smelled wrong, the ground felt wrong…

There were no natural sounds either. Nothing to indicate the passing of a breeze between the trees, or water lapping against the shore, not even the slightest hint of animals of any kind. Logan couldn't say he was surprised at the last; the part of him that was most like them was shrieking to flee the area. It was as though that feeling of foreboding he'd been feeling at the mansion had been amplified by a thousand. Even Ororo seemed spooked, her sensitivity to the world around her just as acute as Logan's.

"You don't want to be here," Ororo noted, possibly to lessen the deafening silence.

He absently rubbed his fingers over the space between his knuckles where his claws were housed. This was where he had become Wolverine. It was where he'd found a place and purpose greater than himself. And where he'd helped the woman who made it all worthwhile – who had owned him from the moment their eyes met and he caught her scent – chase away the demons of her past.

He figured his answer was too obvious to be spoken out loud, and instead asked, "Do you?"

She snorted, the action so like him that it was almost frightening. "Sure, why not. Who _wouldn't_ want to return to the site of a mental meltdown? And why not with the current bane of my existence?"

Logan's lip curled up. "Heaven forbid that meltdown made you realize how much the bane of your existence means to you – " He stopped, as he'd collided with Ororo's back. The air was so thick that she had to stand very close to see and be seen, but she was staring at him expectantly, albeit uncomfortably as well.

And Logan felt every bit as uncomfortable as she was. He was uncomfortable with what he'd said, and he was uncomfortable about the fact that he was uncomfortable! Damn it, they weren't supposed to be like this anymore! All of those awkward love/hate days should've been far behind them. Instead, it was now more than clear that those days were _right_ behind them, as well as ahead of them.

He broke eye contact first, looking around at the white air around them. "You know… if you ever want to talk…"

The look she tossed his way spoke volumes as she continued on her way. "Oh yeah," she retorted, "absolutely. _That's_ what I want."

Logan scoffed as he followed her, muttering under his breath. "I know talking isn't one of my strong points, but you don't have to be such a bitch about it – "

He stumbled on what felt like a tree branch and cursed loudly. It was obvious that they were walking in this fog simply because Ororo didn't feel like clearing it away. Calling her a bitch probably hadn't helped his cause, but he wasn't about to apologize for it. He tried not to let it bother him, but his stumbling was loud enough for her to hear and he was royally pissed around the third time that a low hanging branch slapped him in the face.

"I'm sure this mist is all well and good for you, but I can't see a fucking thing," he snapped.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said with what sounded to Logan like false civility. "I can take care of that. You should've said something."

_As though the thought of clearing the fog just didn't occur to you._ Logan bit back the snide remark as the wind picked up and pushed the endless stretch of fog away. When it was all finally gone, it revealed that they were on the beach. Logan had smelled the water and guessed that they were close, but he never would've known that they were _that_ close. He could blame that on the stillness of the water; it was smooth enough to be glass.

And, as it turned out, the branch that had assaulted him was tumbling end over end in midair, as though possessing personal exemption from the laws of gravity. And it wasn't just one branch. Various rocks and leaves and twigs were effortlessly floating around, not the slightest bit affected by the resistance of the air it passed through. One rock, small enough to fit in his hand, was sailing right for Ororo at a steady pace. Without thinking, Logan tapped it with its finger to change its course. It went without protest, accelerating away from them.

Something else caught his attention, right at the edge of his peripheral vision. He moved back the way they'd come with a silence and fluid grace that belied his current attitude, gliding into the trees without making the slightest noise or leaving any sign.

The leaves that he inspected were thick with moisture from the fog, but the water was dripping _up_ the leaf and falling towards the _sky_. Logan held his hand over the leaf. It felt perfectly normal – except that when the droplets splashed against his palm, they flowed up and around his hand before plopping free and continuing on their way.

Ororo's lips formed a small O of astonishment as she joined him, though it was clear that intrigue wasn't all that she felt about the odd sight. Her muscles coiled in tense anticipation as she gave him a lingering look and walked off to inspect the area.

Logan stayed rooted to the spot, not liking the feeling that he was getting from this place. _Something's wrong._

He took a few cautious steps forward and noticed that even the dirt and gravel beneath him seemed to kick up into the air after every step he took. Further down the beach, larger rocks and even logs were floating in the air, while others stayed rooted to the ground. Odd, to say the least, but not as odd as what he caught sight of next.

He homed in on another object, spinning lazily in midair. He watched in disbelief as it spun closer to him. He didn't want to reach out and break the spell by touching the object, but he had the impulsive need to know that it was just a figment of his imagination. There was no damage that he could see, nor any sign of violence. Nothing was out of the ordinary except its presence.

His frown deepened as he took a hesitant step forward and grabbed them. When he could hold them in his hands, there was nothing to disprove it.

They were Scott's glasses.

Knowing that Scott had been here wasn't altogether that surprising. In fact, Logan had expected it. But where he was at the moment – and without his glasses – was another matter entirely. He sniffed the air and his frown deepened. There wasn't a hint of Scott's scent. Not in the air, not even on his glasses. _What in the hell…_

**_"Logan!"_**

Ororo's shriek stopped Logan's heart. Shock, disbelief, fear… those reactions came through in the urgency of her tone and pulled him to her at a sprint. He saw her kneeling over on her hands and knees in one of the rockier places on the beach, but he couldn't see what she was kneeling over.

But a few steps more, and Logan slowed his pace, his eyes wide in shock. He could forgive her terrified shout, because he probably would've done the same.

Lying on the rocky ground, looking peacefully asleep, was Jean.

"Oh god," he whispered, for lack of anything better to say.

"She's alive," Ororo breathed. "Has to be. How else did she get here?"

"Jean?" He leaned forward. He couldn't hear a pulse, nor could he smell her scent, despite the fact that she was right in front of him. He reached out to check her pulse, but pulled away the instant he touched her skin. It was burning hot. The air around them pulsed at the contact and all of the rocks, twigs, leaves and even sand that had been floating in the air abruptly fell to the ground.

And suddenly Logan could hear her heartbeat and smell her scent, both of which were strong. It was the cinnamon scent that he'd smelled before she 'died.' No trace of the ginger.

Still, he was too elated to pay too much attention to that. Jean was alive! She was still wearing the X-Men uniform that she'd been in before she'd died, but her hair was much longer than it had been a year ago, and she was slightly pale at the moment…

But she was alive! He called her name softly, reaching out to touch her hand. Her eyes flickered open and her eyes settled on Logan. They stared at each other for a long moment before a tired smile crossed her features and she closed her eyes again.

Ororo and Logan both stared at her sleeping form for what felt like hours before Ororo finally attempted to lift her. "Let's get her to the jet."

While he had no doubt that Ororo was strong enough to carry her, Logan knew that Jean's weight would be less of a burden on him. Plus, he didn't want Jean's skin to burn her. "I've got her," he offered, lifting her easily off the ground and shifting her so that he was carrying her bridal style. Ororo pinned him with a look that he couldn't quite identify before turning away and leading the way back to the jet.

Logan frowned, noticing that the air was a few degrees colder than it had been only moments ago.


	79. The New Guys

"She's alive," Ororo repeated as she turned the aircraft for home. There was a faint catch in her voice, and Logan could tell that she was both glad and scared of that fact.

So was he.

He looked down at the glasses in his hands and took deep, calming breaths, unwilling to trust himself to speak until he'd mastered control of himself. He understood instinctively about balance, and had an equally instinctive comprehension of what had likely happened to Scott… Everyone but Scott had come to terms with Jean's death. That cycle of mourning would start all over again if Scott was gone, made worse by the fact that he'd died so that Jean could live.

But he refused to believe it. Jean loved Scott…

He shoved the glasses in his pocket. He'd ponder it another time. For now, he was too entranced by Jean, who appeared to be sleeping soundly on the bunk they'd laid her on. He gently swept a fall of fiery red hair aside, looking hard at her features. _Tell me you didn't hurt him,_ he pleaded silently.

Ororo didn't say another word until they'd landed in the hanger, and made an abrupt exit before the jet fully shut down. "Stay with her while I get the professor," she told him shortly as she raced out of the jet.

Still too shocked to contemplate her tone, Logan simply waited by Jean's side, all the while praying that the worst hadn't happened to Scott. He wasn't the man's biggest fan, but they were sort of frienemies, teammates at the very least. Had Jean been calling his name because of something she'd done? Had that call been directed specifically at him, despite the fact that everyone had felt it?

He didn't have to ponder such morbid thoughts for long, as he felt Xavier's presence in his mind only a few minutes later. He caught a flash of the medical room with Jean lying on the table and realized that the professor had sent him an image of what he wanted Logan to do.

Gingerly lifting her off of the bunk, Logan took her to the medical room and laid her on the table just as Xavier and Ororo walked in. Both looked equally worried about her, but Ororo's gaze settled on Logan. "Will you please go take care of Marie?"

Logan gave her a quizzical look. "What am I, her keeper?" Despite his dispassionate tone, he was immediately on alert.

"She won't listen to anyone but you and I honestly can't blame her for getting into it with Remy."

Now why did that name sound familiar…?

"Emma and some of her staff came to the mansion after feeling the signal that Jean sent out," Xavier explained, his hands hovering over Jean's head in an attempt to assess the damage. "As I understand it, someone said the wrong thing, and they've been bickering ever since. Emma and Elizabeth are likely adding fuel to the fire…"

"And I'd rather not deal with those two right now," Ororo concluded.

"And I get to go break up the fight," Logan grumbled, glancing down at Jean. He really didn't want to leave her – especially to go play peacemaker when it seemed that they were only fussing – but he knew that she'd be fine now that Xavier was tending to her. And besides, it might interrupt his work if Logan was hovering over him the entire time.

Silently promising Jean that he'd be back to check on her, Logan made his way up to the main level to see what all the excitement was about. The second the elevator doors opened, Logan heard Marie's irate voice, her accent made thicker by her ire.

In the foyer stood four mutants that Logan had never seen before, though two of them looked a little familiar. The first was a man that looked to be in his early thirties, wearing a leather trench coat and a fedora. He was leaned back against a wall like he owned the place, his hat tilted so that it covered his eyes. But Logan plainly saw the lazy smile spread across the man's face as Marie snapped at him. He replied in an even voice that held more than a little amusement, his southern accent much thicker than Marie's. If Logan had to guess, the man was likely from southern Louisiana, if the French words that peppered his speech were any indication. And he couldn't be sure, but the scent he gave off reminded him of cayenne spices, for some reason.

Not far from the bickering couple stood two tall women, as opposite as yin and yang, yet both wearing tight clothing and haughty expressions as they watched Marie with what looked to Logan like almost cruel amusement. One of the women was so blonde that her hair was nearly white, her eyes an icy blue that it bordered on silver. Her jeans and tank top were all white, and both clung to her toned body so tightly that the clothes _had_ to be about two sizes too small for her.

The other woman was Asian and wore all black, and she was nearly as covered as Marie was. Black pants, black boots, black shirt, and black hoodie with the hood pulled up over her dark purple hair. Her eyes, sharp and dispassionate, were purple as well, and the hardcore look was completed by a tattoo of a thin red dagger over her left eye. She looked like an assassin, or perhaps a ninja that could fade right into the shadows. She radiated danger even in this relaxed state.

The scents coming from them were jasmine and red pepper, though Logan couldn't tell which scent belonged to which mutant. The final smell was the most familiar to him, though this mutant obviously wasn't the mutant that Logan was reminded of.

The man was clearly tall (a few inches taller than Logan) and his loose clothing hid whether or not he was muscular or lanky. His wavy hair nearly reached his ears, and it was such a dark blue that anyone could mistake it for black. He watched Marie and the man argue with a hint of worry in his golden-yellow eyes, though it was clear that he wasn't going to get in the middle of it.

The man in the fedora raised his hat and glared at the two women with glittering, ruby red eyes. "Ya'll been lookin over here mighty hard," he said, his tone annoyed. "Ya'll wanna feed on this carcass? Gambit don't mind takin a step back an' watchin such fine ladies fight over him. Avoir à elle." (Have at it.)

Logan's French wasn't as good as his German or Japanese, but since the man only used a few phrases every now and then, he could keep up.

"We're fine from here," the blonde said in a deep, velvety tone. "I don't want to get in the way of your new girlfriend. She just might _touch_ me."

Marie turned to the women with a shocked and enraged expression. "How did you – "

"Your thoughts are pretty loud, Anna Marie," the Asian woman said as she tapped her temple next to the red tattoo. Unexpectedly, her accent was British and very thick. "You've thought about touching him once or twice in the past twenty minutes, am I right? _Sugah?_"

Marie was at a rare loss for words, sputtering for a retort and falling short as her cheeks rapidly turned pink at the insinuation. Both women tilted their heads back and cackled viciously. Logan was reminded of Mystique, and not in a good way.

Hating the look of discomfort on her face, Logan stepped forward to tell Marie to get lost so that he could deal with these newcomers. But the man in the fedora beat Logan to it.

"Hows bout ya'll hens shut the hell up," he snapped at them with a vicious scowl. He paused and smiled sweetly down at Marie. "Chere, you touch Remy all you want. Ain't nobody gonna hold that 'gainst ya." He glanced back at the other two women with an irate look. "You see how quick them heifers forget they once wanted a piece of Remy LeBeau?"

While the blonde's laughter abruptly ceased, the violet haired woman only laughed harder. "Oh, I remember getting a piece," the blonde said in a deadpan voice. "I also remember not being very impressed."

"As many times as you invited yourself into his room, we can assume that you were at least… _entertained_ by him, Emma."

Emma glared poisonously at the Asian. "And who the hell asked for your two cents, Betsy?"

"Maybe you can get away with lying your ass off here," Betsy said, "but back home no one has yet forgotten all that screaming you did."

"An' how you think Gambit's feelin," Remy asked. "She was screamin in _his_ ears! Matter fact, they's still ringin!"

Logan had been carefully looking over the blue haired mutant. That face was so familiar, the identity on the tip of his tongue but still out of reach. He sampled the air again.

Sulfur.

Who did he know that smelled like –

Logan's eyes widened. "Kurt?"

All four mutants turned to Logan, and he suddenly felt like a spotlight had been shined on him. Remy was smirking, Betsy and Emma were frowning at him, and the other man was wearing that bright, familiar smile.

"Mon dieu," Remy said, tilting his hat to Logan. (My God.) "As I live an' breathe."

But Logan wasn't paying them much attention. The second man _had_ to be Kurt. His hair was longer and he obviously looked _human_, but some blue skin and a tail and Logan would have no doubts. "Guten tag," he said cheerfully. "It has been a while since I have last been here, ja?"

"Yeah." He looked Kurt over, hardly daring to believe it. How could Kurt look so… normal? The answer was obvious, but he didn't dare believe it. Worthington Labs had only released their cure to the public a few days ago! Logan had known that Kurt was a little shy about his appearance, but to resort to that? "How did you – "

"You are wondering how I can look so different? Observe." He pulled up his sleeve and pressed a button on his wrist watch. His feet stretched into their normal (normal for Kurt) angle, his hands resumed their three fingered state, and his skin darkened until it was the familiar blue that Logan remembered. In a blur of movement, something around his waist uncoiled and lashed about enthusiastically behind him; Kurt's tail, he realized. The process took all of three seconds, and Kurt smiled brightly when he was his normal self again.

To say that he was relieved that Kurt hadn't taken the cure was an understatement. Though Logan would support Marie if she did decide that she wanted the cure, he was still firmly against most of what it represented. For the humans, it was a way to control mutants in case they decided that co-existing wasn't so appealing. It was a hold they had over them, a leash. For those mutants that were only bothered by their appearance – Hank immediately came to mind – this device could offer an appealing alternative.

"Wow," Marie breathed.

Logan nodded in agreement. "Where the hell did you find that?"

His tail wrapped around his waist like a belt and he pushed another button on the watch. The image of Kurt – were he human – returned. "Tony Stark gave it to me," he said excitedly.

Well, _that_ figured. The man had probably created that device out of boredom. "I don't doubt that," Logan muttered, then glared up at Emma and Betsy. One of them was – or perhaps both were – probing his mind. Remembering how he'd shut out Xavier a few days ago, Logan again imagined that his mind was as strong as the metal in his bones.

Betsy's frown turned into a look of mild curiosity, while Emma wore the expression of an awestruck kitten. "Isn't _that_ fascinating," she muttered. She took what seemed to be an involuntary step forward, but then seemed to compose herself as she looked over Logan's shoulder.

Ororo strolled right past Logan and stood beside Marie. "You can leave if you want to," she said kindly, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. It wasn't really a suggestion, and Marie seemed to realize that as she nodded and walked out of the room, giving the two women a lingering glare as she passed.

"Well, now you gone an' ruined the fun, petit," Remy announced dramatically. Taking Ororo's hand delicately, he added, "But you know Gambit is _always_ happy to see his Stormy."

Before he could press a kiss to the back of her hand – and before Logan could let out a possessive snarl – Ororo snatched it away and slapped Remy on the side of the head. It wasn't hard, as far as Logan could tell, but it hadn't been very gentle either. Or maybe it had been hard… As far as Logan was concerned, it could've been harder.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?" she said as she gave him an irritated look.

"Bout as many times as you gotta ask that question, I 'magine," he replied.

"You know we were only kidding around, Ororo," Emma said in a bored tone. "There's nothing wrong with cracking a smile every now and then."

"She's a child – "

"Were that the case," Betsy said smoothly, "we would've left her alone. But she's twenty-one; a legal adult in this country. And I didn't much appreciate being thought of as _her_" – her lip curled distastefully as she motioned to Emma – "bitch twin."

"Nor I," Emma agreed, throwing Betsy a look that was just as repugnant. "We embarrassed her a little and were willing to let that be the end of it, but your Cajun brother was dumbstruck the moment she opened her Mississippi mouth. We couldn't resist, but Marie was never in any danger of psychological trauma. She has a strong mind for a girl of her age. She'll fume about Betsy and I for a few hours and then get over it. Remy, however…" She gave him a grin that was almost evil and Betsy snickered. "I believe he may have made a lasting impression."

Remy shrugged shamelessly. "Always do," he said simply.

"So what exactly inspired all of you to come up here," Ororo asked cautiously.

"We felt something," Betsy said. "Everyone at the school felt it. Mutants across the world probably felt it. Emma said that it came from here and she and I wanted to lend a hand any way we could."

"Gambit invited hisself," Remy supplied nonchalantly. "He got to thinkin, 'been long time since he seen Stormy an' the rest of'–ugh!" Ororo had elbowed him in the stomach, cutting off the rest of his statement. "Why you gotta abuse Gambit, padnat?" he muttered angrily.

"I also invited myself," Kurt said. "I have been staying at the Academy for quite some time, as they do not need fighters there, but I have missed it here…"

"Well, we'll be more than happy to have you if they decide that they still don't want you here, Kurt," Emma said with a strange look in her eyes. Was that… kindness?

Ororo's blue eyes got impossibly wide as she stared at the German. "Kurt?"

He smiled and hit the button on his watch again, returning to normal. "I've been getting that a lot lately," he said with a thousand watt grin. Ororo smiled back, but their moment was cut shot by Logan.

"He left," he told Emma heatedly. "We didn't kick him out. He's welcome to come back whenever he wants."

"Yes, we know… Logan, is it?" Emma responded. "Most of what we know about you comes from Kurt's mind. Remy's memories of you aren't in sharp focus like his are. It's been over sixteen years…"

Logan's eyes snapped over to Remy's ruby irises. He was smirking again, staring right at Logan. "Never knew what came of you after we parted ways on that island, homme, but Gambit always wondered. Don't look like you aged more then a day."

"You know me?"

A predatory smile appeared on Emma's face as she looked between Remy and Logan. "I'm a telepath, you may have guessed. I've no doubt that I can help you remember…"

"I doubt he wants any help from _you_, Emma," Ororo said, the warning clear in her voice.

Before Logan could bask in that possessive tone of voice that Ororo had used, Emma's grin got wider. She didn't bother turning to Ororo as she purred, "Is that a fact?"

Deciding that playing her game was the only way to get her to stop, Logan gave her the sexiest smile he could muster and leaned forward a little. "An absolute truth," he told her without hesitation.

She stopped advancing, her eyes wide as she stared at Logan. She shocked him by tilting her head back and letting out a delighted peel of laughter. It sounded much less cruel than when she'd been laughing at Marie, and it brightened her striking features rather than darkening them.

Remy and Betsy were laughing hysterically too, but Emma didn't seem to mind that it was at her expense. When her laughter subsided, she stared at Logan with an expression that was indisputably radiant. "Oh, I think I'm going to _like_ this one," she said as she gave Logan a thorough looking over. He didn't shift, though her gaze made him a little uncomfortable. Ororo was watching Emma with a murderous look in her eyes, and Remy and Betsy were still snickering at her.

"So," Kurt seemed uncomfortable about breaking the silence, but much more uncomfortable about what was currently happening. "What exactly _was_ that pain that we all felt?"

"It was Jean," Ororo answered.

Betsy and Remy immediately stopped laughing, and Emma turned and gave Ororo a razor sharp look. Kurt gasped a little and looked to Logan for confirmation.

He nodded. "We found her. She's alive."

"That's an interesting development," Emma muttered, pinning Logan with a paralyzing stare. He stared right back, holding what he hoped was a telepathic block firmly in place. After a moment she huffed like a five year old and even stomped her foot. "How the hell am I supposed to find anything out when you shut your mind like that?" Her voice was equally annoyed and fascinated.

"Try asking," Logan said gruffly. "It's what everyone else does."

"Do I _look_ like everyone else?" she demanded.

"Wouldn't hurt ya to act like it every now an' then," Remy commented. "You know how they say; beauty's only skin deep…"

"But ugly is to the bone," Ororo finished, slyly giving Remy a hi-five.

Logan wasn't sure how to feel about that. With Tony, Kurt and even Hank, Ororo had treated them sweetly. Hugs all around, kisses on the cheek, bright smiles… But with Remy she seemed to be roughhousing and causing mischief (or her approximation of it). For some reason, it reminded him of how Marie and Peter acted with one another. Perhaps that's why Logan didn't feel that jealousy bubbling below the surface. _Give it time…_

That's not to say that he'd welcome Remy into the mansion with open arms either. He'd been quite forward with Marie, saying she could touch him all she wanted. The implication was clear, and if it happened again Logan was going to nip that in the bud. Bobby was at least her age and didn't seem to be sex crazed. Remy was obviously his opposite.

"So I've got a lot of layers," Emma said impatiently, clearly dismissing the jab. Or perhaps accepting it – she seemed like the kind of woman that would tolerate an insult if it was based on truth. "Where's Scott? Poor thing must be in shock about all of this."

The glasses in Logan's pocket suddenly felt heavier, but he tried not to let it show. Betsy's sharp amethyst eyes locked with Logan's for an instant, and he felt a strong push at his mind. Hoping that he knew what he was doing, he opened his mind for a brief instant, letting out the first, last, and only warning he would give; _"Stay the fuck __**out.**__"_

He shut his mind again, and watched the obvious shock on Betsy's face. Emma had stopped what she was saying midsentence and was staring at him as well. "You'd make a decent telepath," Betsy said finally, then shrugged. "If you feel any more mental probing, you need to redirect that look on your face to Emma. She doesn't take a hint as well as I do."

"No one cares, Betsy," Emma said tiredly before turning back to Ororo. "If he's been gone for so long, why hasn't anyone gone to look for him?"

"It's not uncommon for him to leave for days at a time without telling anyone where he's going," Logan said, trying to convince her as much as himself. "I'm sure he must've felt that pulse too. He'll be back."

"I should hope so," Emma sighed. "I do so miss him…"

"No one here has time for your whoring around, Frost," Ororo snapped. "Jean is _alive!_ That was the call that brought you here. If you don't care about Jean then go the hell home!"

"Who said I didn't care," Emma demanded, her voice glacial. "I came to help the professor. You know as well as I do that Jean doesn't like me…"

"Small wonder, how you's always hangin on her man," Remy muttered.

Emma's entire body began shimmering until it was transparent and glittering like a diamond. She took a few steps toward Remy, whose blood red eyes glowed brighter as he produced a card – of all things – out of his pocket. The card suddenly started glowing as well, and the whites of his eyes darkened until they were a fearsome, endless black. Ororo's eyes began glowing that frightening white and a threatening crack of thunder sounded in the distance. Kurt took a few steps back, nervously looking between the enraged mutants.

Ororo made a dive for Emma, but Remy caught her before she could reach the other woman. Emma tried to go to her, and before Logan knew that he was moving, the tips of his claws were resting on her throat. Meanwhile, Ororo was so enraged that she began kicking at Remy and Emma drew back to hit Logan…

"_**ENOUGH!"**_

They all froze and turned to look at Betsy, who had appeared between the two pairs and was holding some sort of purple glowing object in the shape of a katana. What appeared to be a mask in the shape of a butterfly was glowing around her sharp eyes as she looked between all of them, waiting for someone to make a wrong move. When everyone stayed frozen, she twitched her wrist and the glowing sword disappeared, as well as the butterfly mask. "Emma, you cause trouble everywhere you go," she said tiredly.

"Look bitch – "

The sword was back in an instant, and Betsy held it at Emma's diamond throat alongside Logan's claws. "In case you've forgotten," she said quietly, "I'm not one of your goddamn friends, Frost. Go throw your bitch fit somewhere else, and don't bother coming back inside until you're ready to act like a civilized mutant. The children at our school may be used to hearing racket like this, but these kids aren't."

Emma's skin slowly morphed until it was flesh again and she crossed her arms as she stomped out the front door. "It's always me that has to get kicked out," she grumbled as she dramatically threw open the door and stormed out. "Just like the old days, swear to fuck…"

Betsy let the sword disappear again before nodding to Logan's claws. He retracted them without comment and she turned to the other two, who were still struggling and fussing heatedly. "LeBeau, put that card away before you break something. And stop hissing like an angry cat, Storm, or I'll throw you outside with Frost."

Ororo's eyes had just reverted back to their natural blue, but at that comment she was ready to fight again. "Lay a hand on me, Psylocke, and you might not get it back! You think you're the only one who can use their powers to make a sword?"

"Take it easy now, chere," Remy said, grabbing Ororo's shoulders gently to hold her back. "She don't mean nothin by it. You know how she gets."

"Perhaps we can move our… _discussion_ to a more private location," Kurt suggested.

Logan nodded, as he too had begun to notice the students that were lingering to watch events unfold. There hadn't been so many only a few minutes ago, but the noise they'd made had probably been enough to draw them out…

"We can go to the professor's office," Ororo suggested, leading the way. Remy and Kurt followed after her without pause, while Betsy watched them leave.

Logan waited for her to follow, but she glanced at him with a raised brow and a flat expression. "I'm fine right where I am," she said as she leaned against the wall in Remy's place. "I'm not a _social_ butterfly."

The joke wasn't lost on Logan, and he offered her a courteous nodded as he left her and made his way down the hall to Xavier's office. And he'd thought that he'd been stirring up trouble with Scott, Tony, and Hank?

He shook his head wryly. Logan felt that his temperament was rather mild compared to Emma and Betsy's.

* * *

Bet you didn't see THAT coming! ;)

As always, thank you to SuniGyrl for the immense help you provided!


	80. Choices

Whew! I was sweating bullets hoping I'd be able to post this chapter on time! Big storm, tornadoes, power out for a full 24 hours... -.-; Only in Minnesota...

And thanks to SuniGyrl, whose help is invaluable!  


* * *

Logan came into the infirmary a day later to find Xavier much in the same spot he'd been in the day before. He was perched at Jean's head, his hands hovering a few inches away from her temples. It seemed that he was listening intently, though Logan could never be sure. He didn't look like he was concentrating too hard.

Rather than wearing the X-Men uniform that she'd died in the year before, she now wore only a maroon tank top and underwear. Her body was dotted all over with direct sensors that seemed to be taking her vitals and showing them on the nearby flat-panel displays. But that was only Logan's approximation of what they were for. "What's all this," he asked quietly, motioning to the various sensors on her head.

Without looking up, Xavier calmly replied, "They provide a constant and comprehensive stream of data to the institute mainframe for analysis, right down to the firing of her individual neural synapses."

Logan nodded. The explanation was a bit technical for him, but he got the gist of it. "And?"

"Her vitals are totally nominal, and have been since you found her. They're wholly consistent with her last physical before her death."

"She nearly burned my skin when I touched her."

"Likely a side effect of her powers, not a fever."

Logan nodded again and resumed watching Jean. Xavier hadn't seemed particularly surprised when they'd showed up with an unconscious Jean on board, and something about that rubbed Logan the wrong way. He'd shrugged it off, thinking that he'd possibly felt Jean's mind and had known that it was her calling them, but the old man had been awfully calm about the whole thing.

"I don't get it," Logan muttered, more to himself than Xavier. "How is she alive?"

"The sheer mass of water that collapsed on top of Jean should have obliterated her completely," Xavier explained. As if Logan hadn't known that. "The only explanation of Jean's survival is that her powers wrapped her in a cocoon of telekinetic energy."

Logan looked down at her peaceful form. She hadn't stirred even a little since they'd brought her back, and it made Logan a bit uneasy. "Is she going to be okay?" he asked.

Xavier's eyes filled with wonder as he pulled away and looked down at Jean. "Jean Grey is the only class five mutant I've ever encountered, her potential practically limitless."

"Is being a class five mutant the same as being an omega mutant?"

"Not quite. Omega mutants have the same potential, but the difference is that they have to develop their powers over years of trial and error and hard work. But a class five mutant – Jean – is different. Her mutation is seated in her limbic system, the unconscious part of her mind. And therein lay the danger."

"Danger? I thought you were treating her."

"I tried…"

Logan had stopped listening, as an image had hit him with the force of a physical blow. When he couldn't banish it, he realized that he was seeing moments from the mission that lead to Jean's death – Magneto's quiet, constant jibes about Xavier's failure to treat the mutant son of William Stryker, Xavier's own very real regret, and the very real consequences that arose from that failure. Jason had been made into a weapon by his father; their attempt to stop the use of that weapon had led to Jean's death.

Logan shook his head, blinking hard. Where the hell had all of that come from? He knew that it wasn't his mind, because he hadn't known that Stryker had a son or that Xavier had once tried to treat him. It didn't even bring the familiarity of a memory being rediscovered either, as was usual when he remembered something from before his memory had been lost.

But Xavier hadn't budged an inch, and didn't even seem to notice that anything had happened to Logan. He glanced at Jean's still form, but dismissed that idea. She was sound asleep, and nothing on the monitors had changed. It couldn't've been her...

Still, he locked his concentration on Jean's face, as if his own senses might tell him what Xavier's telepathy and devices couldn't.

"When she was a girl, I created a series of psychic barriers," Xavier said quietly, "to isolate her powers from her conscious mind, until such time as she could integrate the two properly and safely.

"You see, where Ororo – for example – has had to learn to use her powers and develop them, Jean was simply given the powers with no idea why or what they were for. Ororo _works_ to make rain, while Jean could simply _will_ a spoon to bend. And it's as easy as bending a finger for her. As a result of these barriers that I created, Jean developed a dual personality."

Logan frowned, thoroughly confused. His examples were probably meant to be helpful, but Logan could tell that he was beating around the bush. "What?" he said impatiently.

"There's the conscious Jean, whose powers were always in her control, and the dormant side; a personality that, in our sessions, came to call itself the Phoenix – a purely instinctual creature, all desire and joy… and rage."

Logan grew menacingly still and quiet in a way that would clear even the most roughhouse saloons the world over.

Was the Phoenix the reason for Jean's confusion about her feelings for Logan? If she was the kind of person that Xavier had just described, then they could add danger to that list as well. And between Scott and Logan, who was nearly the personification of danger?

Phoenix had wanted him, and her desires had mixed in with Jean's.

And why wouldn't she want him? Logan and Jean were more alike than he'd realized. He had a wild primal creature inside him that uncaged itself occasionally and tore everything in sight to ribbons, driven by pure and simple bloodlust. Jean apparently had the Phoenix. And the latter wanted the freedom that Logan gave his own monster. Who better to get close to?

Logan took a deep breath as he took a few steps away from Xavier until he was on the opposite side of the medical table. It was a lot to process, and his rising anger and indignation on Jean's behalf wasn't helping in the least. "She knew all this?"

"It's unclear how much she knew," Xavier answered gravely. "Far more critical is whether the woman in front of us is the Jean Grey we know, or the Phoenix, furiously struggling to be free."

Logan swallowed hard. "She looks pretty peaceful to me," he muttered, mostly to himself.

"Because I'm keeping her that way," Xavier said, as though nothing at all was wrong with that. "I'm trying to restore her psychic blocks and reenergize them to cage the beast again."

Logan didn't like the sound of that. Not. At. _All_. "_What_ did you just say?"

Xavier froze, seemingly realizing his slip of the tongue. He lifted his head to look at the outraged mutant before him with a cautious expression. "Logan – "

"What have you done to her? She's not a goddamn animal!"

"You have to understand – "

"You're talking about a person's _mind_ here. And not some random person, either. This is about Jean! We could be talking about her goddamn _soul_!"

"She could just as easily be the Phoenix, and she needs to be controlled."

"Are you listening to yourself?" Logan asked incredulously. Xavier was every bit as bad as Stryker! "Controlled, or _cured_? You know, sometimes when you try to 'cage the beast,' the beast gets angry!"

"You have no idea," Xavier agreed, sending a shiver up Logan's spine. "You have _no **idea**_ of what she's capable."

Logan glared down at the old man, thoroughly disgusted at the lies and contradictions that the man before him suddenly represented. "Well, _professor_," he spat, making the title sound like the most profane of epithets, "I guess I had no idea what _you_ were capable of either."

"I had a terrible choice to make," he flared. "Hobson's choice. I chose the lesser of two evils."

"And Jean? It sounds to me like she had no choice at all."

"I don't have to explain myself," Xavier said dismissively, returning his hands to the sides of Jean's head. "Least of all to you."

"Least of all me," Logan repeated quietly. He was certainly indignant, but also quite surprised. He'd never heard such animosity in the old man's voice, and it was clear that he wasn't at all sorry about it. A low growl raised in the back of his throat. "Nice to know," he snapped as he stormed out, leaving Xavier to his personal psychic voodoo.

He'd be back to check on Jean, but not until that jackass was long gone. In the meantime, he _had_ to know if Ororo had known anything about this. Or even Betsy and Emma. Hadn't Emma specifically said that she was here to help the professor, not Jean?

After they'd gotten settled in the day before, Emma and Betsy had gone down to speak to the professor and to lend him their powers to increase his. Logan had thought nothing of it, but now he wanted to know exactly who was in on this. If Emma and Betsy were such powerful telepaths, there was no way that they couldn't've known what Xavier was doing.

As soon as the elevator doors opened and Logan stepped out, be heard a dark giggle from the other side of the room. Glaring, he saw that Emma was sitting in the corner flipping through a _Cosmo_ magazine. "Someone has a bee in his bonnet," she commented in that dark voice that probably drove men wild at bars.

It had the opposite effect on Logan. "I thought I told you to stay the hell out of my mind."

"Stay the _fuck_ out of your mind, if I recall correctly," she replied in a bored tone. "Old habits die hard, I guess. But I actually didn't dip into your mind. Anyone can see that you're _hopping_ mad right now." She giggled at what she must've thought was a clever joke.

Well, since he was here and Emma seemed to want to chit chat… "What the hell is Xavier doing to Jean?"

"Restoring the barrier between her and Phoenix, if I'm not mistaken." She too said it as though nothing at all was wrong with it. Her mouth suddenly twisted into a frown. "Nothing _is_ wrong with it."

His lip curled up and she tossed the magazine to the ground, getting right up in his face. "Don't give me that look," she warned. "You let that one slip out. You're a projector, which is probably why you can do basic telepathic tricks like blocking your mind. But when you project them like you did yesterday or just now, telepaths hear it even when they don't want to. It's as if you've spoken out loud."

And interesting way of thinking about it, as well as information about himself that he'd have to file away for later. But that wasn't the issue at hand.

"Why the hell would she need to be controlled? She's a mutant, not a dangerous animal."

"You've got that right," Emma agreed. "An animal can be physically contained, tranquilized, put down. If we do any of those things to her, it'd be seen as cruel and unusual punishment. It is, in a sense, because she didn't ask for all that power. But the fact remains that she _does_ have that power. And with that power, she's dangerous. With the psychic blocks, she's less likely to take the world apart atom by atom just because she wants to see what it'll look like."

"You don't know that she'll do that. You haven't even given her the chance to prove you wrong."

"Don't try to tell me that you know more about her than I do. You _don't_. Say we give her a chance and she takes the opportunity to prove us _right_?"

Logan couldn't refute that statement, and silently seethed. It still felt so wrong…

She scoffed in disappointment. "I knew it was too good to be true," she muttered. "Here I was, thinking that you're the rational one around here and it turns out that you're just as emotional as everyone else."

Logan rolled his eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry. Would you rather I was a frigid bitch so that you had someone to connect with?"

She scowled at him in nothing more than annoyance. "I'm going to let that go, because I _**am**_ a frigid bitch. I'm trying to show you the situation in a light that's removed from emotion. If you were receiving this information about anyone else, what Xavier and I are doing would hardly matter. You might even encourage it."

"But it's _not_ anyone else. It's _Jean_!"

"You keep saying that. Why is she so important to you? What, are you in love with her or something?"

Logan gave her a poisonous look and she held her hands up with a bored expression. "Okay, a topic for another day. If you'd let me dip into your mind then I'd know that that was a sensitive subject."

"You don't have to be psychic to find out what makes a person tick," he said with a calculating tone. "You just have to pay attention. Maybe no one else noticed that the trigger to getting you hot and bothered was Scott – "

Her eyes flashed and suddenly Logan couldn't move a muscle in his body. It was different from being paralyzed by Magneto; though he wasn't in any pain, he felt more helpless in this instance.

"If you had any idea of the _humiliation_ I suffered for him then you wouldn't be so quick to bring up the subject," she said in a dangerous tone. "I know everyone loves Jean. Hell, I liked her when I first met her. You probably think that she can do no wrong. Don't pretend that you know all there is to know about her, because if you're just finding out about the existence of Phoenix then you don't know half. But you didn't know any better, so I'll let you go."

Her hold on him diminished and she got right in his face, their noses nearly touching. "However, you've been fairly warned. Mention Scott again and I'll stop your heart. _And_ that nifty healing factor."

She stormed off and left Logan standing there. For a moment he wondered just how deep the issue with Scott went for Emma. The pain had to be unimaginable if such a proud woman was willing to admit that she'd been humiliated.

But he cleared his head of those thoughts. Now wasn't the time to worry about Emma. He needed answers about Jean, and the only other person that was likely to know was Ororo.


	81. Important Information

SuniGyrl, your help = love! :)

Enjoy all!

* * *

Logan invited himself right into her room, closing the door behind him. The sight he was met with was nothing less than scandalous in his eyes: Ororo and Remy were layed out on her bed, Remy with his hands folded behind his head and staring up at the ceiling, and Ororo facing him, propped up on one elbow. She was _intimately_ close to him, and both wore lazy smiles.

They were above the covers, fully clothed, and breathing evenly…

… but even so…

They both looked up at him, Ororo with a slightly annoyed expression but Remy… he settled his gaze on Logan and the whites of his eyes immediately darkened to pitch black. The lamp and nightstand beside the bed began glowing and even rattling a little, but Ororo placed a hand on his bicep and the racket ceased. His eyes were still red-on-black, however, and he still looked like he wanted to rip Logan a new one.

So she'd told Remy about them. Seeing how they'd interacted the day before, it wasn't a very surprising discovery. But the animosity Remy was radiating was even worse than it had been with Scott and for no reason at all, Logan felt his own anger rising as well. Remy had every right to be angry at him and to want to protect Ororo.

But despite that rationality, he couldn't quell his anger. His claws were halfway out of his knuckles before Logan put a lid on it as best he could. He turned to Ororo, ignoring Remy. "I need to talk to you."

"Not right now, âne," Remy said flatly. (Jackass.)

"Va te faire," Logan snapped back. (Fuck you!)

"Oh, shut up, Logan," Ororo said in a tired tone. "Remy we can talk later…"

He gave her a firm look. "I ain't bout to leave you with this – "

"Take a hint, Gumbo."

His frightening eyes snapped back to Logan. "_GAM-BIT._"

Logan glared right back. "_GET-OUT._"

Remy started to sit up, and it was clear that he thought he wasn't the one that was going to be leaving if he made it off of the bed. But Ororo grabbed him with what looked like a firmer hold and tugged his arm. "You know I hate it when people try to protect me. Just leave us for a few minutes. You know I can handle myself."

Remy let out a long sigh before slowly nodding and getting off of the bed. He bent down, and Logan just thought that he was going to whisper a warning in her ear or something. His heart stopped when Remy gave Ororo a quick kiss.

On her _**lips!**_

Logan's rage rose to unprecedented heights when Ororo smiled slightly and motioned to the door as though that action were customary between them. He tried to keep his expression perfectly calm, not wanting to give Remy the satisfaction of knowing that he'd hit on one of Logan's weak spots: his extreme jealousy.

But the smirk and wink that Remy gave Logan on his way out suggested that he already knew, which only fanned the flames of his outrage. Without his permission, his claws jumped the rest of the way out of his knuckles with a loud _snickt_.

The Cajun only grinned wider as he stepped up to Logan, but started violently. "_Merdi!"_ (_Shit!_) He rubbed his backside and turned to glare at Ororo, who's hand was crackling with static. "Ce que l'enfer? Why you gotta zap Remy?" (What the hell?)

She was glaring right back. "You think I don't know that you're influencing his emotions? Knock it off."

Still gingerly rubbing his ass, Remy let out a quiet stream of curses as he walked out the door and closed it forcefully behind him.

"Put those away," Ororo said in a calmer voice, gesturing to his claws. "He's an empath. Sometimes he likes to have fun with other people's emotions, and other times he does it on accident. Be wary of that if you ever feel like your reaction to something is too extreme."

Logan sheathed his claws as he thought about that. That anger had felt so _real_, not like a byproduct of someone else's anger. Then again, that'd never happened to him before. Maybe it was supposed to feel that real.

He also wondered about that lazy smile that Ororo had worn after Remy had kissed her – had he influenced her emotions too? He decided to ponder it another time. Thinking about Remy's powers of empathy hadn't been what he'd come to Ororo's room for. He took a deep breath and began calmly. "What do you know about Jean?"

Her expression remained flat. "Should I start with the obvious?"

Logan bit back a snide remark. "Do you know that she has an alternate personality as a result of psychic barriers that Xavier placed in her mind?"

Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, possibly trying to find a response to that and obviously falling short. She blinked slowly and focused her gaze intently on Logan. "Back up a bit. Start from the beginning."

He carefully replayed the two conversations he'd had with both Emma and Xavier over the past twenty minutes, electing to leave out the bits about Scott. She listened attentively, and it was clear that she was every bit as surprised with this revelation as he was. But what she lacked, he noticed, was the indignation that he felt. She seemed a bit conflicted, kept asking him to repeat what the professor had said verbatim. Frustrated, Logan repeated everything at least three times before she settled into a thoughtful silence.

"You know, Logan," she said after a while, "the professor and Emma would both know more about this sort of thing than we would. Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to assume that he doesn't have her best interests at heart. I think you might be overreacting."

Logan sighed in defeat as he went to stare out her window, not bothering to answer her. In the back of his mind, he'd expected this from her. She obviously didn't see – from _his_ perspective – why the whole thing had him so worked up.

For starters, they'd just found Jean twenty-four hours ago, after thinking that she'd been dead for nearly a year. Before she could even wake up and say her peace, she was being psychologically contained because Xavier assumed that her powers weren't under her control.

And the reason her powers might not be under her control was because Xavier had taken them away, locking them in a corner of her mind that she couldn't reach because he feared that she couldn't learn to handle such power.

Then there was the fact that he saw rather frightening similarities between himself and Jean. Her Phoenix wasn't unlike his Wolverine. If the X-Men were willing to go to such lengths to contain what they thought was a monster inside of a beloved friend, what the hell was stopping them from doing it to Logan if they decided that he had too much power that wasn't under his control? In all honesty, he knew that he was pretty tough, and if he let his temper fly he'd take down as many as he could before going down himself. Maybe they only had to declare that he wasn't emotionally stable.

Would they let him know that they were locking away Wolverine, or would they carefully place indiscernible blocks around his mind until they figured that he was safe? Would they ask his permission? Would they _tell_ him? Would he be aware of what had been taken from him, living in a happy illusion that they'd created for him while his violent half waited for the right moment to break free and kill them all? The thought was sickening!

But Ororo didn't seem to see the parallels, and Logan was reluctant to mention them, only because she might interpret that he was worried about his own hide.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been brooding, but he suddenly felt a nudge at his mind. Xavier wanted everyone in his office, asap. Hank had some important information that they all needed to hear, and he was on a tight schedule.

Logan reluctantly followed Ororo out of her room and down to Xavier's office. _Everyone_ was packed in: Kitty and Kurt (image inducer on, despite how uncomfortable the former looked about that) were sitting in arm chairs and engaged in quiet conversation, Peter was standing by the bookcase, pressing various buttons on his phone (likely playing Tetris), Marie and Bobby were seated on the same couch (though they were close together, it seemed forced), Remy was perched on the arm of that couch next to Marie (boredly rolling a poker chip across his knuckles), Emma was sitting on the edge of Xavier's desk (playing with her hair), and Betsy was leaned against the wall in the darkest corner of the room (watching everyone else).

Ororo walked right in and went to settle herself by the window, but Remy grabbed her hand and gave her a concerned look. She shook her head and squeezed his hand as she continued over to the window, and Remy threw Logan another mistrustful look, his eyes gray and getting darker the longer Logan matched his stare.

But he'd be damned if he'd be the first to look away. He may be Ororo's friend, or surrogate brother – or maybe even something more, despite how that thought made his teeth grind – but Logan wasn't going to back down when personally challenged. Were the room cleared of witnesses, Logan might've grabbed the Cajun by his scrawny neck and shoved –

Emma and Betsy both began laughing hysterically, clutching their stomachs and struggling to breathe. Everyone looked at them strangely, oblivious to the silent standoff between Remy and Logan.

Emma slapped her thigh loudly and pointed at Logan. Her earlier hostility was gone, but Logan had no doubts that it had been real. In fact, this situation presented an opportunity for her to get back at him in front of everyone. "You and I are _so_ much alike," she said after she'd finally caught her breath. "I think I'm starting to see why everyone hates me."

"Naw we got a special kind of hate for you, scélérate." (Villainess.) Remy had abandoned glaring at Logan and was back to rolling the poker chip. Marie glared at him out of the corner of her eye as though it was the most annoying thing in the world. Perhaps it was, as his arm nudged her every time the chip changed direction. "But don't you worry none. Gambit still loves ya."

"What a relief," she said flatly, turning her complete attention to Remy. "But I'm sure it's more than my 'special kind of hate' that draws you to me."

"Were that the case, petit, this mutant just mighta took hisself out the back."

"Well, the door is that way Cajun," she said, pointing her thumb at it for emphasis. "Don't let it hit your ass on the way out."

"Non. Ain't leavin till I hear what mon ami floue got to say." (My fuzzy friend)

Emma chuckled darkly. "I hope he hits you when you call him that."

Remy nearly dropped the poker chip and Marie caught it, throwing it across the room with an annoyed frown. Remy grinned and simply pulled a card out of his pocket. The whites of his eyes darkened to gray and the card glowed softly. "He come at Gambit, he gonna get a _real_ close shave."

Emma looked back at Logan with a smirk. "Is that true for everyone that comes at you?"

Remy threw Logan a smirk as well, his eyes getting blacker and the card glowing brighter. "Sure 'nough."

"Stop egging them on, Emma," Ororo said flatly.

She leaned back on the desk and gave Ororo a devious smile. "Says the woman that instigated the whole situation."

Though Ororo's back was to him, Logan clearly saw her stiffen.

Betsy chuckled. "You don't actually think that your thoughts are safe from us, do you Storm," she asked in a condescending tone. "There may be a lot of static around your mind but when you're focused, your thoughts are as clear as I'm speaking right now." Ororo turned and narrowed her eyes at the two women, who simply resumed their cackling.

"Zap 'em, Stormy," Remy said encouragingly as he twirled the card around.

Marie snatched the card from him and glared. "Knock that off," she snapped. "And stop encouraging them _all_, swamp rat."

"Aw, don't you worry, chere," he said in a velvety tone, reaching out and flicking a lock of white hair. Logan watched him cautiously, part of him hoping that he'd brush her skin with the barest of touches and have his powers leeched. "Remy ain't gonna let those hags at you again. He'd go to the end of the world for ya."

Marie looked thoroughly unimpressed as she smoothed her hair back to how it had been. "But would you stay there," she muttered angrily.

"You comin with, non? We could make that work…"

Bobby frowned up Remy. "I'm sorry," he announced. "I didn't catch your name. Remy, was it?"

Remy pinned Bobby with a paralyzing glare. "You best call me Gambit, boy, or you gonna get dropped like a bad habit, ya hear?"

Before Bobby could respond – Logan highly doubted that he would've, if given the chance – Xavier and Hank both came through the threshold, both looking quite tense. Hank looked around the room, his eyes lingering on the four newcomers for an instant before giving a satisfied nod. "All here," he noted briskly. "Here's the situation…"

He proceeded to tell them that the source of the cure was indeed the bald boy in the picture, an orphan named Jimmy Michaels, codename Leech. His power only worked within about a five foot range of his body, and Hank had personally experienced that his power wasn't harmful in the least. It merely seemed to cancel out the mutant 'X' gene so that any mutant near to him was essentially human, both in appearance and in that they had no powers.

The Cure was supposed to have the same effect, though how it worked was much more complicated than Jimmy's power.

Hank launched into a detailed description – Logan felt like it was a lecture, but paid attention nonetheless – of how the scientists had isolated Jimmy's specific X gene and the power it granted and had replicated it and combined it with a serum that was theoretically supposed to keep creating his X gene so that it didn't leave the blood system of the mutant host that wanted to be 'human'.

While Jimmy was being well cared for, he was still a fifteen year old boy that was confined to a sterile, white room with only a brick sized window that gave him a view to the outside. And all because his genetic makeup was the center of their experimentation. But the entire department was following proper protocol with regards to the boy and his DNA, so for now there wasn't much that Hank could do about it.

While Logan could admit that all of that was fascinating, he had no idea why anyone present, except perhaps Xavier, needed to know any of this information. His head was also abuzz with all of the technical vocabulary that Hank had thrown in. He was a walking thesaurus, and it seemed that Logan wasn't the only one that was getting that impression.

Remy raised his hand with a blank expression, the perfect imitation of a schoolboy with a question. "You mind cuttin down all that scientific speak for a humble Cajun man? 'Cause I'm lost, me."

"You ain't the only one," Marie muttered, too low for anyone but Logan to hear.

Bobby rolled his eyes, as though he'd understood everything perfectly. "Do you really think he has time to dumb the whole thing down just for you?"

Remy cracked his knuckles threateningly, his eyes flashing black in an instant as he looked right over Marie's head, glaring menacingly at Bobby. "Boy, have ya lost ya mind? 'Cause I'll _help_ ya find it!"

"Gambit," Emma said in a calm voice. "Leave him be. He didn't mean any harm." She turned to Bobby with a smile that was nothing less than wicked. "And you'd better pay close attention to Hank this time around. We hear the wheel turning, sweetie, but the hamster is dead."

Bobby began blushing furiously and Betsy and Emma cackled like witches. It took a full five minutes for them to calm down and, in the meantime, Hank patiently reiterated what he'd said in a simpler fashion. Bobby wisely kept his mouth shut.

When Hank was finished with that, he proceeded to tell them the other news that he had: Raven Darkholme, Jamie Madrox, and Cain Marko (Mystique, Multiple Man, and Juggernaut, respectively) had been incarcerated in a supersemi, a double length tractor trailer.

The idea for a mobile prison had been pitched because there were a lot of roads and a hell of a lot of trucks. No one wanted any of the three mutants in their prisons, and they couldn't take the chance of putting someone as personally and professionally valuable to Magneto as Mystique just anywhere. The convoy was constantly on the move, and thoroughly shielded against Magneto's magnetic scans. He could be standing right next to the truck and never sense Mystique's biosigniture.

And in the event that he did find them, he wouldn't be able to use his powers to simply pop the convoy open and free the inmates. They knew this with such accuracy because someone named Forge had designed the convoy himself.

What they hadn't known was that Magneto would find a way to cheat.

While they were still uncertain as to how he'd managed to locate Mystique in the first place, Forge had explained to Hank that Magneto had managed to break inside by attacking the truck directly, on a subatomic level, using specific magnetism and flash points of energy. A slight reshuffle of the alignment of atoms within a molecule, molecules within a lattice, and what had been unbreachable was suddenly as brittle as rice paper.

Magneto and his known accomplice Pyro – Ororo shifted uncomfortably – had freed Mystique, Multiple Man, and Juggernaut, but Mystique had been on the scene when reinforcements had arrived.

She'd been shot with the cure, and Magneto had left her behind.

There was a collective gasp in the room, and even Logan had to admit that he was shocked. He'd thought that Mystique was more than just an accomplice and partner to Magneto. But if Magneto truly considered humans to be beneath him, it kind of made sense that he'd leave her behind. She wasn't one of them anymore, and she was of no use to them or their 'cause' if she couldn't shapeshift.

"How did she get hit with the cure," Ororo asked. She looked… upset. On Mystique's behalf. Logan could understand that, considering how opposed to the cure she was.

"That, my dear, is the reason I think I may have to resign," Hank concluded somberly.

Xavier began shaking his head. "Henry – "

"They put the cure in a _gun_," he said in a hard tone. "The decision to make the Worthington-Rao cure into a weapon was made without me. Policy is being made without me, _behind my back_. The only reason I know a thing about what happened on that convoy is because I have friends like Forge in the pentagon."

"Well," Logan said in a very I-told-you-so tone of voice, "maybe those mutants were a real threat."

Hank glared at Logan. "And who decides what constitutes a real threat?"

_My thoughts exactly_, Logan thought. But out loud he said, "I thought they were convicted criminals."

"Jamie Madrox, you may recall, was a bank robber," Hank said in a tone that was every bit as passionate as it was political. "Cain Marko's crimes were all against property. Are those capital crimes? The 8th Amendment of the Constitution prohibits 'cruel and unusual punishment.' Stripping a mutant – _permanently_ – of their abilities falls wholly under that definition. And that's just for starters. Altering a person's genetic code without their consent is the ultimate illegal search and seizure, not to mention a violation of fundamental privacy!"

"We do much the same with sexual predators, in terms of drug therapy and incarceration."

"We don't _castrate_ them! Nothing is permanent, but this process _is!_"

Logan held his hands up, as though in surrender. "You're preaching to the choir, bub."

Hank narrowed his eyes at Logan. "Why are you playing the devil's advocate?"

"Because I fucking _told_ you that this would happen," he snarled. "You didn't even have the wherewithal to keep your eyes peeled for such an occurrence, just in case. Maybe that's because _I'm_ the one who told you. You might've kept an eye out for it if Storm had suggested it. Hell, if the professor had said something along the same lines you'd've been all over it like makeup on a drag queen!"

Betsy and Emma erupted into obnoxious laughter, and for a moment Logan regretted phrasing his statement in that way. Those two were already rubbing off on him, and not in a good way. Everyone looked tensely between Hank and Logan, while Xavier and Hank simply glared at him. Hank's glare, however, was more understanding. "You think I haven't already kicked my own ass for not listening to you?"

Logan didn't answer, but instead let it go. There was nothing to be done about it now that it had already happened, and rubbing Hank's face in it wasn't going to help.

They all began to discuss how they could best go about finding Magneto, but Logan was only half listening. He'd begun feeling an unexplainable pull, similar to the pull that he used to feel that drew him to Ororo. But this was different, stronger…

And it clearly wasn't coming from Ororo, as she was only ten feet away from him and just as engrossed in the conversation as the other adults. Seeing that none of them were going to ask for his thoughts anytime soon, Logan decided to follow the pull. He walked without thinking; down the hall, down the stairs… and when he found himself waiting for the elevator to take him to the basement, he realized what was pulling him. Or rather _who_.

Jean.

Her name alone raised the hairs on the back of his neck, but he pushed the feeling aside and went down to the medical room to see how Jean was doing. There had to be a reason that she was calling him and not someone else.


	82. Well Enough Alone

Thanks for the help, Watson!

* * *

As Logan stepped in, the only sounds he heard were the soft beeping of machinery in time with Jean's pulse and her even breathing. She had fewer sensor stickers on her body, but now she wore an odd device over her head that seemed to be tracking her brainwaves. Or perhaps it was continuing Xavier's work while he was gone. Logan had the sudden urge to break it, but resisted when he noticed the rapid blinking in various places. There was no telling what could happen to her if he broke it.

He still smelled the intense scent of cinnamon on her skin, and for some reason the pulse on the monitor didn't seem to match the pulse that he was hearing straight from her body. He didn't dwell on that, though. Her powers were probably messing with the machinery somehow.

He saw that a few wires seemed to be tangled and, on impulse, he reached over to smooth them out. Jean's hand whipped around and caught his wrist in a painful grip, causing him to nearly jump out of his skin. _You'd think I'd be used to that by now_, he thought. Ororo usually grabbed him in that manner when she was angry with him, and she'd been angry with him _a lot_ in the time that he'd known her.

In contrast with her grip, Jean's eyes softly fluttered open as the visor machine on her head slowly lifted away from her. She blinked a few times before seemingly realizing that Logan was in the room. Slowly, she turned to him and offered him a somewhat drowsy smile. But it was every bit as kind as he remembered. "Hey Logan," she whispered.

"Welcome back," he said softly, unable to hide his relieved smile. Phoenix or not, she seemed perfectly fine.

"Back where we first met," she said dreamily. "Only I was in your place and you were in mine. You tried to choke me."

"And you just tried to break my arm," he said, glancing down at his still trapped wrist.

"So I guess we're even." She let go and smiled again. She seemed tired. "Still, we've got to stop meeting like this."

Logan smiled back. "You okay?"

She turned her eyes away from him, sighing contentedly and wearing a dazed smile, as though she'd been given too much pain medication. "Yeah. More than okay." She reached up slowly and picked away the sensors that were stuck to her chest, lingering on the one that was nestled in the valley of her breasts. Logan couldn't help that his eyes lingered in that spot a second longer than was necessary.

She bit her bottom lip and gave him a coy smile. "Logan, you're making me blush."

And she was. Her entire body seemed to raise the temperature in the room, as well as the temperature in his own body. "You reading my thoughts," he asked. He wasn't sure why that would've mattered. His eyes had lingered there because that had been her intention. Was she embarrassed that she'd been caught?

"I don't have to read your thoughts," she muttered cryptically, her mischievous smile still in place. His frown only deepened. "It's okay," she insisted.

_What's okay,_ he wondered.

She sat up with surprising ease and grace for someone who'd been dead for a year. But it was clear to him that she was drawing out the motion with what was unmistakably meant to be a sensuous movement. Smirking, she spread her legs until she practically straddled him and used her calves to pull him just a little closer. He eyed her cautiously, and she stared back with a fearless, almost bored expression. But she was staring straight into his eyes with a look of fierce concentration.

He tried to rest a hand on the table, but she moved her thigh in the way and he didn't move it once it settled on her. _Couldn't_ move it. He looked her up and down, suddenly feeling quite sluggish. Why was she giving him that wanton expression? And why was it affecting him?

He drew in a breath saturated with cinnamon and blinked, his thoughts shifting drastically. He suddenly had the animalistic want to grab her hair roughly, yank her head back and bite down on her neck to make her scream. To throw her back on the table, climb on top of her and…

He blinked. Hard.

Something was wrong with him. He was too close to her. They'd already been through this. Albeit, what they'd been through had been quite brief…

But this was different. _She _was different. He felt her presence in his mind for half a second, but it quickly disappeared, spreading and becoming a part of him.

He looked her in the eye, and suddenly felt that the space between them could be smaller still. "It's okay," Jean whispered, both out loud and in his mind. "There's nothing wrong with what you want, Logan. It's what I've always wanted too."

And he believed her.

Her lips brushed against his, an invitation that didn't just send tingles through his body, but unleashed a lightning bolt that rocked him from his head to the tips of his toes. It felt like he'd been plugged into an emotional supercharger; every sense kicked into overdrive, all of them centered on Jean. The sight of her eyes so close to his, the impossibly smooth touch of her skin, the scent of her hair, the sound of her voice, the very taste of her… All those things combined to fan his desire to white-hot incandescence.

His lips crashed into hers and she moaned eagerly into his mouth as she wrapped a scalding hot arm around his neck, pulling him closer. Her legs tightened their hold around his waist and he used the opportunity to run his hand across the smooth flesh of her thighs. She tugged his shirt down, smoothing her hands over his broad shoulders. He grabbed her and lifted her with ease, laying her back down on the table and eagerly climbing on after her as he continued exploring her body. He settled his heavy weight on top of her, but she only let out a happy gasp and locked them together with her legs. Her grip was so tight, in fact, that he had to struggle to release his arms, which were pinned between her chest and his own.

She racked her nails down his shoulders, tearing the skin. He pulled away momentarily, groaning as he lost himself in the duality of pleasure and pain that coursed through his body and straight to his center. He returned his lips to hers, kissing her harder and breaking his arms away to feel every inch of her skin available. And _a lot_ of it was available. She battled him for dominance, both of them knowing that it had nothing to do with who was on top.

Though she only had two hands, he felt her stoking him everywhere, nearly making his head spin with pleasure. He couldn't breathe, didn't have to; couldn't stop, didn't want to. Time seemed to stretch, expand, and turn back upon itself, enabling him to live a lifetime in an instant, then go back and try it again.

He moved down to her neck, biting down hard and even drawing a little blood. She arched her back, crying out in delight. Her blood hit his tongue and he felt as though a hazy veil was being lifted from his mind with a thick pulse. Logan looked down and saw Jean practically writing beneath him and immediately pulled away.

How the _**fuck**_ had that happened?

He blinked hard, trying to pull his thoughts into something coherent that he could understand. But it was made difficult by the fact that sensations and emotions not belonging to him were still swirling around in his mind. As everything that'd happened in the space of the last thirty seconds clicked into place for him, he gasped and frowned down at Jean in confusion. When she'd stared at him…

_She_ had done this!

She reached for his shoulders to pull him back down to her, but he remained rigid. "Wait," he said, pulling back.

"No," Jean moaned. Her gaze flew down to the waist of his pants and his belt ripped off, colliding with the wall clear across the room and almost taking his pants with it.

He looked down in horror before hopping off completely and pulling his shirt back on. She sat up just as quickly, a fierce and frisky look in her eyes. Logan frowned, shaking his head. "Jean, this isn't you." He took a few steps forward and framed her face with his hands.

She copied his gesture and tried to pull him into another kiss, desperate to be in control again. "Yes. Yes, it is me," she insisted.

She'd opted for pure strength rather than mind control, and for that Logan was somewhat thankful. Strength he could deal with. He grabbed her forearms and kept her at bay. "No," he said as firmly as he could manage. "The Jean I know wouldn't do this."

"Then maybe you don't know me very well." She'd stopped struggling against him and instead used her telekinesis to continue what her hands couldn't. She stroked and squeezed just the right areas to make Logan growl in frustration.

"Stop it," he warned.

"Make me," she challenged playfully with a lecherous smirk.

"Jean, you've been through hell. Maybe you ought to take it easy, eh? The professor said you might be…" The wild desire in her eyes disappeared at the very mention of the professor and she stopped everything she was doing to him, her expression suddenly a chilling calm; the kind of calm that a person radiated when they wanted to break something. And if Xavier had been right about her, she could break every adamantium bone in his body if she wanted to. Her blank stare raised the hairs on the back of his neck. "…different," he finished lamely.

Though her face was devoid of emotion, her voice dropped a few octaves. "Well, he would know, wouldn't he?" Logan pulled away from her, kicking his own ass for mentioning the professor. Perhaps Jean _was_ aware of what had been done to her.

"What?" she demanded. "You think he's not inside your head too, making little adjustments here and there? Look at you, Logan." She shoved him away, disgust and accusation in her suddenly darker eyes. "He's _tamed_ you," she hissed, her eyes darkening further until they were nearly black.

_You're one to talk about 'little adjustments' after that rape attempt_, he thought sourly.

"That wasn't a rape attempt," she said with a light chuckle. "I didn't _make_ you do anything. I helped you along, I admit, but you were the one that let me in."

"Hard to refuse when you _let_ yourself in."

She gave him a long look up and down before a malicious smirk appeared on her face. "It's not me, is it?" she muttered cryptically. "It's _her_. _She's_ the reason you won't have me. _She's_ the one that tamed you, not the professor. A little ironic, considering that storms are supposed to be so chaotic…"

Every muscle Logan possessed tensed at the mention of Ororo taming him, as though he'd been some kind of stray.

"You're letting them treat you like one," she said flatly.

"What happened to you," he asked, appalled at her.

"Jean's lack of control nearly killed us," she said simply

And that's when it finally hit home for Logan. He wasn't talking to Jean. He hadn't kissed Jean. He hadn't awakened Jean.

He'd awakened the Phoenix.

The way she said 'Jean' suggested that she'd detached herself from her other half entirely. While they happened to share the same body, Logan now understood that they were two entirely different people.

"Now you're getting it," Phoenix said with a smirk. "I did what I had to in order to save our life."

"And your baby?"

Her face stayed perfectly smooth as she stared at him. "What baby?"

Logan frowned. It seemed as though Phoenix was aware of everything that had been happening with Jean; like a passenger that couldn't take the controls. She should've known that Jean – she… _they_ were pregnant.

He listened hard to her pulse, but didn't hear it rise with excitement. Her pulse stayed slow and steady but that damn irregularity…

A weaker pulse beneath hers quickened, and Logan jumped back in surprise. It wasn't possible! Her stomach was still flat! When Jean had saved herself, had she actually stopped time inside her little cocoon?

"Close," she purred, "but try again. You've been around the block a few times Since 1834, in fact. You should be smart enough to figure it out."

Logan eyed her suspiciously, turning over all of the information that he'd received about Phoenix in the past few hours.

And out of the blue, it seemed to click into place.

The reason that he'd felt a pulse in the first place…

The reason that the gingerbread scent had separated into cinnamon and ginger…

The reason the scent of cinnamon had increased with the pulse he'd felt…

"You never _were_ pregnant," he said flatly. "That pulse I heard wasn't a heartbeat, it was _you_ and your power. That cinnamon scent is _you_, and the ginger and pulse that I hear now belongs to Jean and her power."

She smiled lazily and leaned back, looking around her with absolute superiority and boredom as she lightly kicked her dangling feet. "Atta boy," she said with a smirk. "It's a mystery to me why everyone thinks that your strokes of brilliance are so far and few between. No one gives you any _real_ credit for being smart." She locked eyes with him again. "Such a shame, because you're right more often than not."

He felt her using her powers to stroke his back, possibly in an attempt to relax him. And as much as he hated to admit it, it was starting to work. It was impossible to tell if she was making him believe that it was working, or if it was her words that were winning him over, because he still felt like he was in control of his mind and actions. He took a deep breath and tried to raise a barrier between their minds…

He _was_ rather tired of being underappreciated… "No one wants to listen to me."

"And aren't you sick of it," she asked, her gaze paralyzing him as she leaned forward. "Wouldn't it be nice to know that someone appreciates your brilliance as well as your… _animalistic_ tendencies?" She licked her lips as she stared intensely at him, almost as if she was hungrily looking through his clothing. "Maybe even worship you for that wild side? There aren't many men in the world that are as raw and intense as you are, Logan. You're just like me; a creature of primal passions. Granted, you try to keep them in check with some misconstrued code of honor…"

She'd moved her powers lower and when he realized that she was trying to arouse him again, he jerked away. With new resolve he strained as he thought about how he wanted her out of his mind, but she seemed to be dancing through the barriers. Still, she'd ceased her stroking. "Too bad you're not a telepath," she said, her voice once again detached and disinterested. "And no, I wasn't looking through your clothing. What fun would that be when I could make _you_ rip it all off for me?"

Logan shuddered, because he knew that she could. Then something she'd said earlier made him pause. "Was I… was I born in 1834?"

She pulled away with a hair-raising smile. "You were."

He glanced at her expectantly. "Anything else?"

"By my estimate, about 172 years worth," she said calmly. "I can see into your mind as easily as I can see your face in front of me now. Your memories are there, but they aren't put together in a way that you can understand. A few things here and there have twisted some of your memories back into focus, but the rest is jumbled like an unfinished Rubix cube. It wouldn't take much effort to fix that, but…" Phoenix smiled, very slow and very dirty as she left the end of that statement a mystery.

Logan opened his mouth, the words, 'name your price' on the tip of his tongue. But his eagerness had resulted in him nearly speaking too soon. With a look like _that_ on her face, what the hell else could she want?

Well…

_No._

…

Maybe?

Damn it _all_! He wanted his memories _so_ badly. He'd chosen to stay with the X-Men rather than attempt to get the answers from Stryker. But with Stryker, there had been the very real chance that he would've fed Logan all kinds of bullshit and sent him off while he devised his next plan to eradicate mutants.

But Phoenix…

Who was to say that she wouldn't do it if she got what she wanted out of him? As Xavier said, her power was practically limitless. She could simply will him to remember everything and it would probably come to him in a blinding rush.

It would, likely, take her all of two seconds. Two seconds of her time to restore 156 years of memory that he didn't recall. All in exchange for agreeing to be her bitch for an hour.

But Ororo…

"She doesn't have to know," Phoenix said boredly. "It wouldn't kill you to keep a secret, would it? Besides, she's been treating you like shit."

Logan ground his teeth together.

"…"

His hands balled into fists.

"…"

He released a breath he'd been holding in. Once again, the universe seemed to have it out for him. It wasn't fair, but he couldn't make himself do it. Perhaps there was still bad blood between him and Ororo, but he still belonged to her. In _every_ sense of the word. Yes, she'd been treating him like shit, but lately he'd been returning the favor.

But that wasn't the only reason. He had more pride in himself then to reduce himself to a whore to get his memories back. He'd survived well enough without them for sixteen years, and there was always the chance that Betsy and Emma could help him...

Phoenix's eyes widened to the size of saucers and a truly sadistic smile spread across her face. "Say, how _is_ Emma doing? I would just _love_ to see her."

Logan frowned uneasily. "I thought you didn't like Emma."

"Oh, _no_!" Yet her expression was nothing short of sinister. "Emma and I go _way_ back. Jean can't stand her, because she thought Emma was the 'other woman'. I couldn't stand her either when she helped Xavier lock me in the back of Jean's mind, but I got her back and I've been watching her squirm ever since! I find her absolutely delightful now!"

"What are you talking about?"

She frowned at him and he felt her swimming around in his mind for a moment before she gave a satisfied nod. "You know a little about the triangle that is Emma, Scott, and I," she commented. "Did you know that, technically, _**I'm**_ the 'other woman'?"

Her words were like a needle scratching off a record, and Phoenix grinned wide as she continued. "Those two were happy for _years_ before I came along. But a little influence from me and suddenly Scott couldn't dream of living another day without Jean in his life."

"Where _is_ Scott?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"We traced the beacon on his bike to Alkali Lake…"

"Well, I'd probably start there."

Logan stepped forward and grabbed her arms, visualizing Scott as clearly as he could as he looked into her eyes. Her gaze remained blank for a few moments, but slowly her brow creased in a frown and her eyes fell away from his, widening in shock. "Phoenix?" He didn't dare call her Jean.

She looked around her, eyes lost and filled with a mix of confusion and pain. She blinked, sniffed, shook her head, blinked again, as though waking from the deepest of sleeps. "Where am I?" she asked softly, catching him by surprise. She really meant it. She had no idea where she was.

_Goddamn it…_

Logan stepped closer. The cinnamon scent of Phoenix evaporated into pure ginger. The scent was much weaker and laced with terror, but it was unmistakably Jean. He took her by the hand, willing his strength into her slim frame, hoping that by taking it she'd be able to use him as an anchor against the chaos swirling inside her mind.

"You're in the mansion," he said in his calmest voice. Jean had control for the moment. All he had to do was make sure that he kept her calm so that she kept that control. "You need to tell me what happened to Scott." She huffed and looked away, and Logan then felt her confusion as though it were his own. Logan pulled Scott's glasses out of his back pocket, surprised that she hadn't pulverized them as much as she'd been crawling on him. "Jean, tell me what happened to him," he coaxed, holding the glasses up for her to inspect.

She looked down at the glasses blankly, as though they meant nothing to her. But Logan watched as recognition dawned in her eyes, as well as horror. An image of a whirlpool flashed before his eyes and he watched as Jean closed her eyes, close to tears. "Oh, God," she whispered.

Another image hit Logan, this time of Jean and Scott heatedly kissing and embracing. Logan looked around him and saw the machinery was falling apart, screws spun from their holes and shot through the air, cabinets opened and shut, tables trembled and moved around, and Scott's glasses broke, crumbling into nothing as tears began streaking down Jean's face. Everything began shaking and Logan suddenly felt Jean's panic as acutely as if it were his own.

He framed her face again, this time of his own free will. "Look at me," he commanded, shaking away the image of Scott's neon red eyes. "Jean, stay with me," he tried again. But the shaking in the room only got worse, and the images she pressed at him only came faster: Scott's red eyes fading into an ice blue. His shock. His wonder. His desperate kiss. His scream of terror as he tried to pull away. His furious struggling and fear as he realized that Jean was holding him with no trouble at all…

Logan shook it all away, knowing that it had to hurt Jean more than it hurt him. "Talk to me," he begged. "_Look at me!_"

She was looking everywhere _but_ at him, even going so far as to close her eyes. "No," she gasped. "I can't! He… I…"

"Focus, Jean!"

She was whispering, so softly he couldn't make out the words. He read her lips as they moved, and suddenly he didn't want to know what she was a saying. He gave her a rough shake and everything stopped. "Kill me," she breathed, making sure he heard this time.

Logan's heart stopped. "What?" He still didn't want to believe that he'd heard correctly.

Her eyes begged him. "Kill me before I kill someone else."

Logan numbly shook his head. "Don't say that," he said flatly.

"Please, I'm begging you! You're the only one who can…"

"_Stop it_!"

"_Kill me_!" The room began shaking again, everything rocking and breaking. Glass from the cabinets shattered and everything lurched towards them, as though Jean were drawing the objects to her for protection.

"Stop it! Look at me." She stopped crying momentarily, her eyes lifeless. "Jean, it'll be alright," he told her. "Look inside my head; deeper than I can go, likely deeper than Charley. You can see where I've been, can't you? I've lost it too, Jean. But you can climb out of that abyss. We can help you, okay?" She hiccupped and gave the tiniest of nods. "The professor can help, he can fix it."

Everything stopped moving and for a painful second the entire room was dead silent. Jean's eyes became black as night, her face twisting in a frightening rage that Logan had never seen. Cinnamon replaced ginger and Logan knew that there was nothing he could do to repair this mistake.

She leaned in close to him and rubbed her nose delicately against his. "I can't go back to the way I was," she whispered gently. "I'm free now. I thought you, more than anyone else, would understand that and love me enough to let me go." She leaned in closer still, as though to kiss him. Their lips brushed almost tenderly, but her voice was suddenly as hard as steel. "I don't _want_ to fix it!"

He felt a small pressure in his chest and his feet left the ground. He hardly knew what to think of it until he was hurtled into the wall with the full force of a Category Five hurricane. He was out before he could even register the pain.


	83. Pursuit

SOOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry! I know that I usually post around noon-ish, but some things came up as far as me moving to Arizona that demanded my attention. But, it's still Thursday, so I made my deadline. Go me!

As always, thank you Wilson, for your help in making a good chapter great!

Enjoy!

* * *

Laid out, Logan woke up on the floor, not quite registering how he'd gotten there. Or how he'd he gotten in the infirmary, for that matter. The pain was too great. He breathed in and coughed and hacked violently, spitting up blood in torrents. He felt like his insides had been puréed, and judging by the dent in the wall the size of his body, that was a very real possibility. The back of his _skull_ felt like it was dented too, and if his fiercely pounding head was any indication, his brain had probably swollen.

But _how_ had he gotten like this?

He felt a cool hand on the back of his neck, inhaled a rainforest scent and heard a familiar voice call out his name. Another hand found its way to his bicep, gently tugging him into an upright position. He slowly lifted his head, wincing against the unforgiving throbbing. Why was there the lingering scent of cinnamon…

"Jean?" he said groggily. He tried to sit up and his eyes fell on Ororo's face. Her blue eyes, wide with concern for him. Everything snapped back to him. "Jean!" Phoenix had done this to him. He grabbed onto Ororo, ready to protect her if need be. But it seemed that Jean had already left. Had she hurt Ororo on her way out?

"What happened?" Ororo asked as calmly as she could manage. She seemed unhurt, as far as Logan could tell. Her heartbeat was only slightly higher than usual, her breath also a little quick, and she smelled of fear. But she looked fine.

"What have you done?" Xavier accused, as though his were _his_ fault.

He continued holding Ororo's arm for support, looking into her worried blue eyes to again assure himself that she was fine. He wanted to ask her if she was alright, but his brain wouldn't form the correct words. He turned to Xavier, who was still glaring down at Logan from high up in his chair. Again he tried to speak, to tell Xavier that Phoenix had awakened, that she'd used her mind control to nearly force him to have sex with her, that he'd managed to bring Jean to the surface, only to have Phoenix wrestle back control of their body. But he could tell by the venomous glare he was receiving that Xavier had heard all of that. "I… I think she killed Scott," he said finally.

Ororo's eyes widened. "What? But that's not… She loves…"

Xavier stared at him with an expression that was grimly calm. "Don't look so surprised," Logan snapped.

"I warned you about her," Xavier hissed angrily. He closed his eyes, presumably to 'look' for Jean with his power. "She's left the mansion," he muttered, "but she's trying to block my thoughts. She's so _strong_!" His eyes slowly opened and they settled on both Ororo and Logan. "It may be too late."

"What about Cerebro?" Logan suggested.

Xavier shook his head tersely, as if it was all the effort he could spare. "She's keyed into it, just as I am. Given her current state, she could easily wrestle control of it from such a great distance and use it to amplify her own abilities beyond comprehension. It's not a scenario I wish to behold."

Betsy and Emma burst into the room, the former with her butterfly mask and glowing katana and the latter in her diamond form. When they looked around and saw that Jean was nowhere in sight, they reverted back to their normal states.

"What happened," Betsy demanded in an authoritative tone, eyeing the blood that Logan had coughed up.

"What the fuck do you _think_ happened, genius," Emma spat. "I knew that bitch would surface. Jean is nothing more than a passenger now…"

"She…" Ororo shook her head in numb shock. "She killed Scott."

A hair splitting screech broke through Logan's painful daze, drilling into his brain like a rusty nail. He clutched his head in pain, covering his ears despite the fact that the noise was inside his mind. It ceased as abruptly as it began, and Logan slowly looked around, wondering where the hell that had come from. He was sure he'd seen everyone flinch at the noise…

Everyone except Emma, who was staring off into space with an expression that was no more shocked than Betsy's.

Remembering what Phoenix had said about Emma and Scott, Logan was sure that it must've been her scream. Perhaps she was holding in her emotions now but for that brief second that she'd let them out, that cry had rattled his very soul, had been borne of complete and total anguish. She raised her hand to her stomach and rubbed it, as though to keep from vomiting. She opened her mouth and bent over, but began breathing heavily, her eyes wide and sightless.

The glowing butterfly reappeared on Betsy's face and she grabbed both sides of Emma's head with a look of fierce concentration, letting out a steady stream of curses when Emma only seemed to get more anxious.

"Betsy," Xavier said sharply, "get Remy down here and calm her down. Use your power to magnify his empathy or vice versa if you have to. You two" – he motioned to Ororo and Logan, pinning Logan with a hostile look as he began wheeling out the door – "are coming with me. I think I know where she went and we have to get there fast it we want to help Jean."

They climbed into Xavier's Mercedes and were on their way in less than three minutes. Though Logan wasn't sure of where they were going or what they were going to do, he thought it best to keep silent. Not that he could've contributed to any conversation when his head was pounding so viciously. He occasionally felt Xavier poking around his mind, and had to force himself not to close it off. He felt animosity every time Xavier entered his mind, but it wasn't wholly directed at Logan, which he found odd.

Ororo was visibly tense, and Logan wondered if Xavier was taking memories from Logan's mind and letting Ororo see what had happened so that she knew the situation. Every now and then, she'd briefly turn to the professor and nod or shake her head. He certainly hoped that Xavier wasn't showing her _everything_. Though that incident on the table hadn't been his fault, he doubted that he'd be able to reason that to Ororo.

Again he kept that to himself as they drove. Now wasn't the time to worry about what Ororo would think of him for that small episode.

She was only breaking the speed limit by about ten miles, but they arrived at their destination in only half an hour. Parking the car, Ororo and Logan got out and assembled Xavier's wheelchair in no time before helping him into it. Logan wanted to mention the impracticality of traveling in a European touring sedan for folks in Xavier's condition, but kept silent. From what Logan had seen, all the X-Men had their toys. The Maybach was apparently Xavier's.

The neighborhood looked nice enough; families were out grilling or playing in the sprinklers… Normal things that people did in a quite neighborhood. Logan hoped that they wouldn't cause a scene and scare the humans, but he got the unyielding feeling that this was going to end badly.

"Wait for me here," Xavier instructed as he wheeled forward.

Logan shook his head hesitantly. "Why?"

"I need to see Jean alone."

_Not likely_, Logan thought as the tangy scent of copper hit his nose. He tried not to groan in frustration. "You were right, Charles," Magneto said charmingly as he walked up to them. "This one _is_ special."

Logan glared at Magneto, who responded with a courteous smile. Of all the goddamn luck… "And what the hell are you doing here," he demanded.

"The same as the professor, dear boy," Magneto said casually. "Visiting an old friend."

Xavier briefly looked around him, scanning the happy neighborhood before scowling up at his former friend. "I don't want any trouble here, Erik."

"Nor do I," he replied.

The awful truth was that, while Logan knew that Magneto meant it, he knew that humans didn't count for much of anything to him either. Mutants were the sentient beings in his eyes; all others on the planet were merely placeholders, to be disposed of as casually as one would throw away a spent tissue.

Logan remembered the story that Xavier had told him when he'd first arrived at the mansion; about how he'd once feared humans and how Magneto had been the one to show him that he didn't have to hide from them. It suddenly occurred to Logan that the wheel had turned full circle for the two former friends: Magneto was now – and would likely remain – where Xavier had started; among those he hated.

Xavier hadn't said a word in the time that Logan had been thinking, and then he realized that Xavier had listened in on his thoughts and was turning them over for himself.

"Charles?" Magneto gave him a strange look. Well, it was strange to Logan, who'd never seen such a look on the ruthless mutant's face before. It almost looked like… _concern_? "Shall we go inside?"

"I came to bring Jean home," Xavier said firmly as he wheeled away. "Don't interfere, Erik."

His cape billowing in his wake, Magneto turned and made his way to the house, chuckling quietly. "Just like old times, eh?"

Logan tracked the conversation as they walked away, which wasn't too hard in such a quiet neighborhood.

"She needs help. Jean is not well."

"Funny. You sound just like her parents."

Xavier sighed heavily. "You must trust me, just this once, when I tell you that Jean is more dangerous than either of us ever imagined."

"Well then," Magneto responded, in a tone of infinite confidence, "it's lucky I'm here to protect you." He paused and addressed a very tall, very heavily muscled mutant that smelled like straight sweat. Perhaps Magneto underestimated Logan's hearing, or perhaps he just didn't care if Logan heard or not. "Nobody gets inside," he told the lumbering mutant, glancing at Logan and Ororo.

Said mutant squinted in their direction and smirked. _Must be my lucky day_, Logan thought sarcastically. _At least it's not a woman..._ He eyed the two women behind him, not at all a fan of how relaxed and at ease they looked. One of them looked like she lived in her leathers, and her skin was painted with art and accented with piercings that would make any gangbanger worthy of the name appear modest by comparison. She caught Logan staring and wiggled her eyebrows at him. _She_ was clearly the dangerous one.

After pausing a moment at the door, Xavier and Magneto slipped inside and the wait began. Any other time, Logan would've leaned against the car or even gotten back inside. His head was still pounding painfully, and despite how much Magneto seemed to despise the majority of the X-Men, he still seemed to have some respect for Xavier. Logan didn't think that Magneto would hurt him.

But Jean – _Phoenix_, he corrected – was an entirely different story. She was obviously in a mood, which was apparent from the pulse that hovered around the house and the fact that he could smell her scent and anger from the street. And the mutants that were standing guard didn't look the least bit sociable.

After only a minute or so, the mailbox began to tremble and the white fence door slammed shut by itself. The sky also grew a little darker, which Logan didn't worry about until he saw Ororo frowning up at the sky in confusion. People that had been out enjoying a barbecue down the street noticed the strange events and scattered like mice.

Phoenix's temper was rising, and Logan had the sickening feeling that she was going to hurt Xavier if he didn't do _something_.

"I'm going in," he declared.

He made it one step before Ororo grabbed his bicep. "The professor said he'd handle this," she warned, though when he turned to look at her it was clear that she wanted to go too.

"Phoenix has it out for him…"

"She's _my_ friend too, goddamn it," she snapped, her eyes bright and tense. "For longer than you've known her! Don't you _dare_ screw this up!"

He looked back at the four mutants, all of whom had stood their ground. The trembling hadn't stopped, but it hadn't gotten worse. Logan ground his teeth together and stayed put, his muscles locked and ready to spring if any of the other mutants so much as sneezed.

The burly one – Juggernaut, if he recalled Hank's update correctly – smiled wide at Logan. "I heard those claws can cut through anything," he announced. "You feel like taking a shot?"

"Don't tempt me, bub," Logan growled.

"_Get out of my head_," Phoenix's voice whispered.

_Phoenix_, he thought at her, hoping she could hear him. _You need to calm down. The professor just wants to hel_ –

"_You think there's something wrong with me too?_" she accused.

Logan heard another whisper of a voice, all the way in the back of his mind. It was so quiet that he had to concentrate to hear what it was saying. "_The potential within you is glorious_." It was the professor. Logan was listening to what Phoenix was listening to. "_But it must be embraced by the maturity to know how to properly wield it. The reward that awaits you is beyond belief, but you must travel the entire path to reach it. There can be no shortcuts._"

"_I don't think your mind games are going to work anymore, old friend._" Unmistakably Magneto.

"_Erik!_"

"_I think he wants to give you the Cure._"

"_Enough_," Phoenix snapped. "_Out. **Both** of you._"

"_Look what happened to Scott_," Xavier cried, his tone laced with a hint of desperation. "_You killed the man you love because you couldn't control your power! You damn near did the same to Logan!_"

"_NO! __**STOP IT!**_" Logan started violently, Phoenix's angry screech nearly bursting his eardrums. Glass could be heard shattering inside the house, as well as drywall and rock. He also heard a faint thump that could only be a body being thrown.

"That's it," Logan muttered, dropping into a defensive stance and pushing his claws out of his knuckles. Screw what Ororo had to say about it. He wasn't going to let Xavier get hurt because he'd made the mistake of waking Phoenix.

Juggernaut grinned evilly and donned some kind of helmet that looked more durable than steel. Logan took the opportunity to sprint forward, hoping to catch him before the burly mutant knew what hit him. Big guys like this weren't always the brightest.

But as soon as his helmet was in place, he sprinted forward too. Logan angled his claws at Juggernaut's chest, in no mood for games. But the other mutant bent his body damn near in half and head butted Logan, sending him a good six feet into the air before landing – dazed and confused – right on his ass.

Figuring that the second hit would be even more fun than the first, Logan tried to get up. That blow from Phoenix had done a number on him, and he was in no shape to take on this mutant while not at full power. But before he was on his feet, he felt two hands grab at his ankles and lift him into the air as though he weighed no more than a ragdoll. He felt himself sail through the air and into a window, shattering it completely.

He landed on a coffee table and continued sliding until he found himself staring at the underside of a dining table. He was inside. But which house? The concentration of cinnamon told him that he was indeed inside Jean's house. Maybe now he could get to the professor before Phoenix hurt him.

He sat up groggily, coughing up more blood. He started violently when the front door caved in and a body burst through. Strikes of lightning had been the cause of the thrown body, and Ororo stepped inside seconds after, scanning the area. The mutant she'd thunder-punched was the woman with all the tattoos and piercings. Ororo's anxious eyes settled on Logan, which was a mistake. The other mutant – who seemed to have the power of super speed or perhaps teleporting – appeared in front of Ororo as though out of thin air and punched her squarely in the jaw.

Before Logan could react, Juggernaut lumbered in and threw the dining table to the side. Logan tried to scramble to his feet, but Juggernaut grabbed him roughly and threw him into the air. He broke through the ceiling, scraped the ceiling of the second floor, and fell through the floor, landing back on the first level. And he was only ten feet away from his opponent.

Stunned, he gasped for air and choked on the blood that filled his lungs. He decided to try rolling just out of reach, but he still wasn't fast enough. The mutant took a few swift steps towards Logan and kicked him squarely in the gut, causing him to break through the wall again and land outside in the front yard.

"God_damn it_," he shouted in frustration. His body was taking a serious beating, and any of his internal organs that had been in the process of healing before were obviously reopening. And Juggernaut wasn't quite as stupid as Logan had been hoping; he knew just how to keep Logan from getting up quick enough. The bastard seemed to be enjoying toying around with him, too.

Before Logan could even see straight, he felt himself being picked up yet again. He went through another wall and caught a glimpse of the super-speed mutant holding onto Ororo's hair and throwing her across the room into a grandfather clock. Seeing that gave him the strength to finally jump to his feet and push his claws out. But he didn't make it two steps in their direction before Juggernaut dragged him back and threw a punch at him. It landed squarely on Logan's jaw and the pain was so intense that he thought he felt his jaw dislocate. Color and heat exploded behind his eyes and before he could try to duck away from another blow, the house shook and Logan found himself flattened against the ceiling.

Objects were flying around everywhere, doors were shaking, and it looked like the entire house was floating, if the passing rooftop outside was any indication. Bracing himself, Logan jerked his jaw back into place, his howl of pain lost in the howl of the wind both inside and outside the levitating house.

He allowed himself a brief second to heal, but he wasn't sure exactly how long it was, as his vision blacked out more than once. When he was certain that he'd stay conscious, he used all of his strength to roll himself over. Trying to right himself would do him no good, so he instead used his claws like climbing spikes to drag himself along.

The trembling double doors were his goal. From beyond, he could hear Magneto crying out frantically, though he couldn't hear what was being said. Panic seized his heart and he moved faster under the crushing weight that was flattening him to the ceiling. He'd brought Jean to the surface briefly in the infirmary. Maybe he could do it again. He had to try _something_, or Phoenix was likely to get carried away in her fury.

When he finally made it to the doors, he pushed them open with some difficulty and was met with a fearsome sight. Phoenix was standing tall in the middle of the room, her hair stirring languidly around her as though she were underwater despite the fact that the room was a virtual hurricane. Her skin was patchy, darkened by her rage and her eyes were glittering, endlessly black as night. She looked like she was composed entirely of light, a star made flesh and so far beyond earthly terms of beauty that Logan had no words to describe her. Not even concepts.

She simply… _was_.

Xavier hovered maybe three feet above the ground, his back to Logan. His wheelchair hovered only an inch above ground, so it was clear that Phoenix was holding him up. Magneto was nowhere in sight, but Logan could accurately guess that she was holding _everyone_ up, as Ororo and the other two mutants were flattened to the ceiling as well, none of them able to move. She was also holding up the house, which was probably a good ten feet in the air by now.

And she wore only a slightly annoyed expression, as if nothing around her was taxing her strength.

Except perhaps Xavier's presence.

She blinked and everything became quiet. The glass and other miscellaneous objects in the room slowed and simply floated in the air, while the rest of the house and the objects in the other rooms continued to rattle and fly around chaotically. Time itself seemed to slow.

Now that the majority of the noise had been quieted, Logan heard more whispering in the back of his mind. It was Xavier, though he wasn't sure if Phoenix was projecting the thoughts for all to hear or if Xavier himself was so lost in thought that a few were escaping his mind.

He didn't look afraid. He looked determined. The professor was trying to reach Jean with his memories, applying to her consciousness the many talks that they'd had about ethics and responsibility, reminding her as strongly as he was able that his dream was as much hers as his. That he may be the mind behind the X-Men, but she was very much the heart. Through her, Xavier beheld the window to all that was and is, and the best of what might be.

And yet, the very humanity that made all these things possible held in its other hand the darker demons of human nature. Heights were defined by the depths over which they towered; the greater the summit, the more terrible the fall. Phoenix's power was otherworldly, but she was letting it control her.

That train of thought stopped for an instant as an unimaginable pain engulfed Xavier, as well as Logan. He felt like his skin was being taken apart, broken down on a molecular level. Right in front of his eyes, he saw that happening to the professor. It was excruciating, but the pain stopped as soon as it began, and Logan felt Xavier's relief about the fact that his power allowed him to mute his perceptions of pain.

But after that relief came an eerie, almost welcome calm. Xavier knew that, as energy, he could neither be created nor destroyed – although his state might well have changed beyond recognition. He allowed himself a small smile and muttered something to Phoenix, which Logan couldn't hear above all the other noise.

Suddenly another thought came to Xavier, out of nowhere – one of those unlikely connections that land as a complete surprise, yet seem perfectly obvious once they're in place; the soul of the team, its moral anchor, was none other than Logan. He turned to look at Logan, the back of his mind knowing that he had one last thing to say before his time was up.

Logan's heart stopped. He couldn't give up that easy! _Phoenix! Listen to him! _"No!"

"_This isn't your fault, Logan,_" he said in his mind, his voice as calm and gentle as the first day they'd met. "_I can't save her, but I truly believe that you can._"

From the other room, Magneto seemed to sense that something terrible was about to happen. "_Charles!_"

A shock wave erupted from the room with cataclysmic effect. The blinding explosion of light threw Logan, Ororo, the other two mutants – likely everyone but Phoenix – out of the house and dumped them in the front yard. The drop was easily twelve feet, and the house fell to the ground seconds after they did.

Logan lay still, fading in and out of consciousness yet somehow aware that he had severe internal bleeding that needed time to heal. He wasn't sure how long he was in that state, but after a while a soft moan brought him back to earth.

His eyes sluggishly opened and he saw Ororo unsteadily trying to stand not fifteen feet away. Her hair had twigs and grass sticking out at every angle, her jacket was torn and hanging in shreds. There was dirt all over her face and beneath the dirt were the beginnings of heavy bruising. Aside from the bruising, he was sure that he didn't look any better. Probably worse because of all the blood he'd coughed up.

When she noticed that he was awake, she nodded to the house. "Did the professor make it out before all that?"

Logan's eyes widened. The professor. Ororo hadn't seen what Phoenix had been doing. The explosion that had ended it all…

Ororo's face paled and Logan jumped to his feet, able to do so by sheer adrenaline alone. He raced into the house through the wall that had caved in, Ororo not far behind. The sight that he found was heartbreaking.

The mutants that he and Ororo had been fighting, as well as Phoenix and Magneto, were gone. Sitting in the middle of the room, covered with a light layer of dust, was the professor's wheelchair. Logan shook his head in disbelief. It was Xavier. _He_ had been the explosion. Logan choked on a sob, knowing it was true but not _wanting _to believe it. He looked back at Ororo, who was staring at the chair with equal disbelief, tears filling her eyes. She looked up at him, her lips trembling.

Logan didn't even register the shock of his knees hitting the ground as his body finally called it quits. He let the tears fall freely, shaking his head in disbelief. He hardly heard himself sobbing. He didn't see anything that he was looking at.

This was, unmistakably, his fault. He should've left Jean alone. He should've heeded Xavier's warning. If he had, they'd all still be back at the mansion, slightly miffed at one another but perfectly fine.

But he hadn't.

And now Charles Xavier was dead.

And despite what the old man had said before he'd met his end, this _was_ Logan's fault.

A weight settled on his back and arms wrapped around him. He felt cold tears hit the back of his neck, and felt Ororo shake violently against him from her own sobbing. He knew that she shouldn't hold onto him for support when this was his doing, but he couldn't make himself shake her off.

He couldn't fathom the pain that Ororo must be feeling. To have lost first Jean, then Scott, and then Xavier… And to have lost them both to Jean so quickly after she'd suddenly risen from the dead…

They stayed like that for a long time. Minutes? Hours? To Logan, it felt like a small eternity. Finally, Ororo's cries had quieted to sniffles and she let go of Logan, getting to her feet. With a look of unshakable determination, she walked over to Xavier's wheelchair and wheeled it out of the house.

Logan stared around the room for a moment longer before gathering his strength and following her. By the time he made it to the car, she had most of the chair taken apart and carefully placed in the trunk of Xavier's car. Without a word, Logan got behind the wheel this time and turned the car around, driving them back to the mansion.


	84. Break Down

THANK YOU WATSON!

Enjoy, all!

* * *

Logan parked the car in the garage and Ororo was out and halfway across the garage before he'd shut the engine off. He noticed that she gave the trunk of the car a wide berth, and he inadvertently did the same. "You're injured," he told her, jogging a bit to catch up to her.

She shook her head firmly. "I'll be fine. I don't need your blood."

Well, he hadn't been offering, but he kept that comment to himself. She didn't look hurt enough for his blood, but she did look like she needed a little medical attention. "At least let me look you over."

She huffed impatiently and changed direction, stomping all the way down to the infirmary. She undressed without delay, leaving her in only her plain black bra and panties. The sight normally would've made him drool, but the bruises forming all along her body as well as recent events killed his libido. Neither said a word as Logan carefully examined her from head to toe.

He was no doctor, but he knew a hell of a lot about injuries. She sported plenty of cuts and bruises, some shallow and some not. Some of the deeper cuts, he noticed, had been crudely cauterized. She'd likely done it herself with the heat of her lightning to prevent blood loss, but he wasn't too worried about them getting infected so long as she made sure that she treated them.

The worst appeared to be bruised ribs. He felt up and down her ribcage carefully, and was relieved to discover that she hadn't fractured anything. Still, he could tell that her breathing was a bit shallow to accommodate the pain she was in. But his worry for her rose when she did little more than flinch under his probing. She was shutting herself down, and it was very likely that she was in much more pain than she was letting on.

"It's bruising," she said in a dismissive tone. "It's nothing to fuss over. Can I go now?"

Yes, she was definitely trying to shut him out. "I'm not fussing," Logan said carefully. "And I wouldn't be so easy to dismiss such an injury if I were you."

"Nothing is broken. I'm perfectly fine."

She tried to reach around him for her clothes, but he stood to his full height and placed his hands on the table behind her, trapping her. She still took a hesitant step away from him and he looked her straight in the eyes, attempting to paralyze her. "You know," he said softly, "the price of having people around that care about you is that when you get hurt, we feel it too."

She watched him for a long time, her eyes untrusting and… guilty, he realized. Before he could wonder about that or even ask, she gently placed her hands on his chest and nudged him away. He didn't want to, but he took a step back and let her go. She collected her clothes, silently re-dressing herself with her back to him. When she was finished, she slowly turned around, but still refused to meet his questioning eyes. "You're right," she said quietly. "What a surprise."

With that, she felt the infirmary without looking back, leaving Logan standing there wondering what that was supposed to mean. He didn't dwell on it for long, however. He was sure that she blamed him for what had happened at Jean's house. She'd told him to wait, but he hadn't listened. Perhaps Xavier would've been able to talk her down if he'd waited only five more minutes…

Or perhaps she thought that in his statement he'd been referring to Jean's condition. Or Xavier and Scott's death. Logan sighed heavily. He wasn't sure, and he was in no condition to ponder the mystery of her thought process.

Thoroughly exhausted and still healing injuries from both Juggernaut and Phoenix, Logan stealthily made his way up the stairs and through the halls to his room. He was in no mood to be the baron of bad news, and doubted that he'd be able to break the news to anyone without sounding overly callous to cover up for his own anguish. Thankfully, he only passed a few students before he made it to the safety of his room. He hated that Ororo would have to be the one to break the news to everyone, but she was probably much better at those types of things than he was.

He wasted no time in peeling off his torn and bloody clothing and getting into the shower, pausing only for a second before deciding on scalding hot water. He winced at first contact and his skin turned pink from the heat, but he got used to it after a few moments of standing perfectly still, thinking.

What were the facts?

Jean was alive.

Her power was great, terrible, and likely limitless.

Her alternate personality seemed to be in absolute control.

Scott was…

And Xavier…

He chose not to finish those thoughts. The pain was still too fresh. He could hardly imagine how everyone else would feel when they finally found out everything that had happened in the space of only a few hours. He felt a gentle nudge in his mind and erected a barrier to keep them out. Likely it was just Emma or Betsy trying to get details. He didn't have the energy to be mad at them, but he wasn't in the mood to have his thoughts and memories sifted through either.

He got out of the shower and dressed, unsure of what to do next. He could try taking a nap to kick-start his healing factor, but with all of the drama of the past few hours, he doubted that he'd be sleeping for a few days, if not weeks. Still he could rest his body even if his mind refused to do the same. He lay down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and controlling his breathing in an attempt to put himself in a sort of meditative trance. It wasn't the same as sleep, but his mind would be blessedly blank until his body healed.

But luck wasn't on his side. He felt that nudge again, much more insistent this time. But it wasn't the same as a telepathic probing. It was a pull.

Ororo's pull, laced with pain and desperation so great that it left him momentarily breathless. Logan got up quickly and blindly followed her pull, ignoring the odd stares and questioning glances he received along the way. He was willing to set aside their petty and admittedly unnecessary back and forth to help her through the emotional trauma that she was likely suffering.

The pull led him to the Danger Room, which he found odd. He cautiously stepped inside, ready to find a simulation of violent storms, earthly or even celestial. Instead, it appeared that the machine wasn't on at all except for the lights.

Remy and Ororo both stood in the middle of the large room, panting heavily. Remy looked over at Logan as he entered, his eyes red-on-black. But before Logan could tell him to fuck off, a look of immense relief crossed the Cajun's features. "Bout time," he said, panting lightly. "Look, I know ya'll got problems between ya – "

Logan shook his head as he got closer to them. He didn't care about that. "What's going on?"

Before Remy could reply, Ororo seemed to have caught her breath and drew back to strike him. Remy blocked it, only to be targeted in another spot. Logan watched in shock as Ororo attacked Remy, thoroughly confused. He could tell that she was pulling her punches when it seemed that Remy wasn't going to be able to block her, but his refusal to strike back and his inability to protect himself against all of her blows only seemed to agitate her.

She was breathing heavily, and Logan suspected it was because of her bruised ribs. Such strenuous activity was going to damage her lungs if she kept at this. He waited for an opening and grabbed her, gentle enough to not injure her further, but firm enough to keep her from continuing to attack Remy. "Stop it!" he told her. "You're going to hurt yourself!"

"Let _go_ of me," she shouted back, struggling furiously to get free. She turned her attacks to Logan, kicking and pulling and throwing her head back, anything to break free from him. More than once she nearly managed to slither out of his grasp, but he held firm. After a while she stopped thrashing, but Logan's skin began to tingle.

"Wolverine!" Remy shouted. He didn't look angry at Logan. Rather, he looked _scared_ for him. "Let her go!"

Before Logan could wonder why or even let her go, he felt static build up under his skin and she unleashed it on him with a ruthless scream. He was thrown back a good twenty feet, but he wasn't knocked unconscious. That alone gave him the knowledge that she wasn't completely enraged with him. She just wanted to fight.

He sat up in time to see Ororo coming towards him, her eyes hard and her muscles locked and quivering. But suddenly Remy stood between them, facing Ororo and dropping into a defensive stance. "I know you mad at him," Remy said in a voice of forced calm, "but ya gotta get over that right now. S'il vous plaît, ma sœur. He here to help ya." (Please, my sister.)

"I don't _need_ help," she spat viciously. "No one told him to barge in!"

"I did," Remy said flatly.

Ororo's attention on Logan diminished with those words and her rage turned to Remy full force. "You used your empathy on me? To get me to _call_ him?"

Remy took a hesitant step back. "You don't got that connection with anybody but him. I don't care what ya think of him right now, Ororo. Ya need him."

She glared daggers at Remy for a long moment. Logan refused to move from his spot on the ground, not wanting to break Ororo from her thoughts if she was finally starting to calm down from whatever rage had taken over her.

But it seemed that her anger evaporated into sorrow so great that Logan could actually feel it in the air around her. She let out a choked sob and slid to her knees, completely collapsing into a fit of tears. "I let this happen," she wailed. "We should have gone in with the professor when you wanted to. I should have listened to you. I _never_ listen to you…"

Remy looked over his shoulder at Logan, frowning down at him in confusion. Clearly, he didn't know what had happened or what had put Ororo in this mood. Logan hesitated only an instant before jumping to his feet and slowly approaching her.

"Don't do this, Ororo," he said in a soft voice, hoping not to startle her. When she didn't shrink away from him, Logan moved closer to her, their faces only a few short inches apart. She refused to meet his eyes, and Logan refused to touch her in case that sent her into another bout of rage. "This is a dangerous slope you're going down. You and I both saw what it did to Scott. You can't shoulder the blame and wish that you had done something different, and neither can I. Yes, the outcome might have been different, but it might have been exactly the same, or worse. You don't know any more than I do, and if you start blaming yourself for something you _might_ have done, it'll eat at you until there's nothing left."

Remy dropped into a crouch beside Logan, gently placing his hand on Ororo's. "You listen good to him. You know he right."

She shook her head vigorously and snatched her hand away from Remy. She glared up at Logan, as though Remy was the last thing on her mind. "No! You don't _understand_! I never listen to you and, because of that, no one else does!"

Remy took her hand again, more forcefully. "Don't you start with that."

She yanked it away again and touched her hand to Remy's chest. Her eyes flashed white and a strong gust of wind blew Remy clear across the room, much as Phoenix had done to Logan earlier. Logan looked behind him and saw that he'd just landed on his ass, like Logan had a minute ago. Remy was fine, and Logan turned back to Ororo. "What are you talking about? Don't start with what?"

The question only seemed to make her more hysterical. She traded English for her native tongue and shrank away from Logan, crying and shaking and talking so fast that it her speech blurred into one long, endless word.

The air around them began swirling dangerously and snow appeared. Within seconds it turned into rain, then froze again to create hail. Small tornadoes began appearing in every corner of the Danger Room and lightning crackled and snapped loudly all around her body. Logan knew that he couldn't touch her without being electrocuted again, and the scene was quickly turning into a repeat of the Dark Cerebro chamber. He turned to Remy, who was looking around him at the increasingly violent weather. "Can't you calm her down," Logan shouted over the noise of hail hitting the walls and floor.

Remy shook his head helplessly. "I'm tryin," he said. "I _been_ tryin. Calmin down Emma damn near drained me. Had to tap into my reserves just to get her to call you. I'da been S.O.L. if she never told me about that little trick between you two."

"What the hell is going on?" Just as she said it, the scent of jasmine hit Logan's nose. He and Remy turned around to see Betsy coming towards them, expertly dodging the hail and lightning with a tense expression.

"Storm," Remy said by way of explanation. "She's…"

"Throwing a tantrum," Betsy said as she looked around, though her voice wasn't unkind or condescending. She was simply stating a fact. She eyed Ororo – crying on her knees and shaking and speaking in her native language – with a thoughtful expression before turning to Remy and Logan. He felt her rifling through his memories of the past five minutes or so and he didn't block her out.

When she was done, he felt the absence of her presence in his mind and she turned back to Ororo, the glowing butterfly appearing on her face and the katana appearing in her hand. "Get out," she said flatly.

Logan didn't have to ask who she was talking to, but was outraged that she'd assume that they'd leave her at a time like this. Remy seemed to have the same idea and took a step closer to Ororo. Betsy pointed her sword at Remy threateningly and he threw a glowing card at her. It flew at her with the speed and deadly accuracy of a bullet, but she used her katana to slice it in half with an effortless flick of her wrist.

Logan pushed his claws out of his knuckles and Remy held what looked like an entire stack of cards, aimed and ready to be thrown at her with the force of an AK-47. If they had to fight to protect Ororo from Betsy, then so fucking be it.

When she backed away from them, Logan thought that it wouldn't have to come to that. But instead, she'd just been putting distance between them and dropped into a defensive stance of her own, blocking their path to Ororo.

Logan's claws retracted in his surprise. _She_ was the one that thought she was protecting Ororo. From _them_. She nodded to Logan, acknowledging that his thinking was correct. "I'm telling you to leave because you can't give her what she needs right now."

The shock wore off and Logan snarled at her. "And what can you give her that we can't?"

Betsy looked squarely at Logan. "An enemy."

He stiffened at that. Ororo wanted to fight, that much had been made clear. Neither Logan nor Remy wanted to, but Betsy was clear minded and focused and able to stay in control of the fight, removed from emotion. For that reason, she'd have the upper hand and she'd neither hurt Ororo nor let Ororo hurt her.

"I can promise you that," Betsy said in a firm tone. "She needs an outlet for her anger and self loathing. I can be that outlet."

Logan nodded reluctantly. As cruel as Betsy and Emma could be when they wanted, it was clear that they genuinely cared about their friends and extended family. He made his way out of the Danger Room and Remy followed, swearing heatedly in French all the way.

Just as the doors closed he heard Betsy's voice change. "Get up," she commanded harshly. Logan shook his head. Despite her assurance that she wouldn't hurt Ororo, he wanted to be sure with his own eyes. Perhaps Ororo was in the throes of a tantrum, but if Betsy so much as severed a lock of Ororo's hair, he'd light her up.

"I'm going to watch them," he announced, making his way down the halls in the direction of the control room.

There was only a slight pause before he heard Remy's hurried footsteps behind him. "Ya'll got a observation deck or somethin?"

"Basically," Logan answered, rounding a corner. "The control room has a large one-way mirror so that we can observe the younger students during a training session. It might be hard to see them around the snow and tornadoes, but it's better than nothing."

Remy nodded as they walked into the control room. The Cajun went right to the one-way and stared out intensely, while Logan glanced across the controls, hunting for the button that would give them audio.

"She stopped," Remy told him. "The weather, that is. Betsy got her to stop all that, but she still cryin."

Just as he finished his statement, Logan hit the audio button and his ears filled with the sound of Betsy's harsh voice and Ororo's soft crying..

"Spineless," Betsy was saying. Logan walked over to the one-way and stood beside Remy, looking down to find Ororo still on her knees, gently rocking herself back and forth while Betsy circled around her like a predator. "Weak," she continued. "Pathetic."

"Pitiful," Ororo spat. "Worthless. Shameful. You think I don't own a goddamn thesaurus?"

Betsy chuckled darkly. "I can't think of a word to accurately describe how amazing it is that someone as strong as Wolverine would want _you_."

Logan ground his teeth together. _What the **fuck** are you doing?_ he thought loudly at her.

_"She stopped crying, didn't she?"_

Logan focused his sharp eyes on Ororo and saw that she had indeed stopped crying. But Logan wasn't sure he'd ever seen her look so livid. "You think I don't know that I'm not good enough for him?"

Logan blinked. Hard. _"WHAT?"_

He hadn't turned on the speaker in the Danger Room, so they didn't hear his inquiry and continued on. "He needs someone as headstrong as he is," Betsy said in a thoughtful voice. "Someone who won't use him as a scapegoat. He has experience the likes of which you can't imagine, but you've been an X-Man longer and the team will accept your judgment faster than his."

Logan thought at Betsy, so hard that it was rapidly giving him a headache. _What the hell are you DOING?_

"_Playing the villain_," Betsy responded, a bit impatiently. "_The angrier she is, the sloppier she'll be and the faster she'll wear herself out. Now shut the hell up!_"

"How else am I supposed to make him hate me," Ororo said with a nasty snarl, her eyes glowing and white lightning snapping wildly between her hands.

"You don't have to make him hate you," Betsy said with a casual shrug. "Not if you can find someone to take your place in his heart. He and Emma aren't all that different in temperament, and she could _really_ use the emotional support right now. Though, I have to say, he'd probably have more in common with someone like – I don't know – me…"

Ororo screeched in blind fury and leapt at Betsy. The lightning in her hands intensified until the light was nearly blinding, but somehow she managed to keep it contained and, strangely, in a shape that was identical to Betsy's glowing katana. She wielded her new weapon like a makeshift light-saber, her strikes hard and fast but, just as Betsy had said, sloppy. Betsy blocked with her katana, her moves steady and precise but by no means effortless.

No more words were exchanged between the two women as they wore themselves out over a period of forty-five minutes. Logan watched every move like a hawk, cataloging the medical attention that Ororo would likely need after this fight. She looked exhausted, like her anger and will were all that were keeping her on her feet.

Though he noticed all those things, his mind was a million miles away at the same time. He'd suddenly remembered how Ororo used to blame herself for things that were out of her control. He'd thought that she'd gotten over that and had turned to blaming him instead, but the few clues that he'd gotten suggested that she very much blamed herself. Dangerously so. But still, he couldn't rationalize what Betsy had meant about everyone taking her side over his.

Because of her anger at him, had the rest of the X-Men assumed that he wasn't trustworthy? Had she been _purposefully_ not listening to him? Purposefully turning everyone against him? It made his head throb to think about it, and when he saw Ororo swaying dangerously, he immediately left the control room to get her, Remy right on his heels.

She was just falling by the time he opened the door, but Betsy caught her and held her until Logan came and picked her up. He hesitated before he left, wondering if Betsy needed medical attention as well. She looked just as worn out, but her stubborn pride kept her from panting too heavily or hunching her shoulders in pain.

He opened his mouth to offer to look her over too, but she glided right past him disguising a limp that no one but him would've ever noticed. "Don't insult me," she snapped. "She needs the help. Focus on _her_."

Logan nodded as he carried Ororo to the infirmary. That wouldn't be hard.


	85. Time To Grieve

Okay, so there's something that needs to be addressed first. If you don't care… Well, skip down. I won't make you read my little note.

So, when I first got the idea to add Remy into this story, I looked up a little info about him on Wikipedia. You know, personality, powers, etc. Apparently, that was my first mistake. But I didn't realize that, so I skimmed over the page a little and got as much info about him as I thought I would need. That was my second mistake. APPARENTLY, though the little sidebar on Wiki clearly lists empathy as one of Remy's powers, upon reading further it says that it is in fact only a hypnotic charm. I guess he can persuade people to believe him, and when they know that he's trying to glamour/charm them, it doesn't work anymore.

Likely, you already knew that. I didn't.

I don't like conforming (nor am I very fond of rewriting the seven or eight chapters that I've already written with him as an empath) so in this story he's going to continue being an empath. Maybe he perfected his hypnotic charm until it developed into empathy?

But, for reference in future stories where Remy makes an appearance, it's good to know that his powers don't extend beyond charm and persuasion. And please don't think that I'm bitching and moaning. I'm actually thanking you (SuniGyrl and LazyCatfish27) for pointing that out to me, and acknowledging that you were right and I was… unwittingly taking creative liberties. :)

Enjoy!

* * *

The afternoon was bright and sunny. Hardly fitting, considering the mood. Something heavy, biblical even, would've been more fitting to how everyone was feeling. Logan knew that it wasn't raining in torrents only because Ororo was keeping a _very_ tight leash on her emotions.

Her fight with Betsy had been two days ago, but she showed no battle scars from that fight or from the fight at Jean's house. She'd been unconscious for six hours before Logan had finally caved in and given her a bag of his blood in an IV. She'd awakened a few hours later, sore as hell but good as new. Physically.

Her blue eyes had been a dreary, cloudy gray since she'd opened them, and she hadn't uttered a single word to Logan. Or to anyone, as far as he knew. Her eyes were still gray as she strode to a space on the grass just in front of Xavier's stone.

In his will, Xavier had requested only that he be buried on the grounds of this school. It had been up to everyone else to decide where, and after a few hours of quiet discussion, Emma had suggested that, though they had no bodies to bury, stones for him and Scott could be put in the garden.

The greater monument was, as far as Logan could tell, nearly as tall as him, with an embossed picture of him in profile, along with his name and the words **Father • Mentor • Teacher**. Beside it was a smaller grave stone, reading **Scott Summers**.

Ororo looked out at everyone in attendance at Xavier's funeral and took a moment to compose herself. In that moment, Logan could understand why during her youth in Africa she'd been seen as a goddess. Even her sadness was beautiful.

Still, Logan would've given just about anything to take that sadness away.

"We live in an age of darkness," she began in a calm tone. "A world full of fear and anger, hate and intolerance. For most of us, this is the way things are and always will be. Some maintain it's hardwired into so-called human nature. But in every age, there are those who fight against it."

Emma and Betsy stood a little ways apart from everyone else, both wearing sober expressions. But, while it seemed that Betsy was attentively watching Ororo and listening to her eulogy, Emma was staring at Xavier and Scott's grave stones, her eyes hollow. Betsy glanced at the blonde beside her for a long moment before hooking her arm around Emma's and returning her attention to Ororo. Emma didn't look away, but responded by tightening her hold as though Betsy were keeping her anchored.

"There was Moses," Ororo continued, "who led his people out of slavery, but never reached the Promised Land himself; Abraham Lincoln, who saved the Union and freed the slaves, but never lived to see his country at peace; Franklin Roosevelt, who led America through the Great Depression and the Second World War, yet died before the final victory; John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, struck down cruelly before their time, their promise unfulfilled; Martin Luther King Jr., who fought for equal rights but was struck down by an assassin's bullet… The list seems never-ending."

Kitty was trembling, visibly trying to keep her tears silent. Kurt, who was sitting next to her without his image inducer, placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. She sniffled loud enough for Logan to hear from his spot on the balcony and turned to Kurt, burying her face in his shoulder. He stiffened, but after a few moments his tail hesitantly wrapped around Kitty's waist, a silent offer to stay in that position as long as she needed.

"It wasn't something they asked to do. They were chosen, and he was chosen too."

Though Logan had picked a spot where he could stay relatively out of sight, Ororo looked up and her eyes found his at once, as though she'd known precisely where to look for him. The pain in her eyes mirrored his, only more so. Logan knew that she mourned not only the friends she had lost, but feared as well for those about to follow. And something akin to guilt surfaced in her expression as well, but she smothered it quickly and turned away from him.

"Charles Xavier was born into a world divided; a world he tried to heal – a mission he never saw accomplished. It seems the destiny of great men to see their goals unfulfilled."

Logan saw Marie glance up at him too. It was clear that she wanted him down with the rest of them, but Logan couldn't escape the feeling that everyone's eyes were accusing him of Xavier's death. He avoided her gaze, as though he couldn't see her looking up at him. After a few moments, she turned back to Ororo, her hand tightening around Bobby's while she leaned her shoulder into Remy's on her other side.

"Charles was more than a leader, more than a teacher. He was a friend. When we were afraid, he gave us strength. And when we were alone, he gave us…" – Ororo swallowed a lump in her throat – "a family. He may be gone, but his teachings live on through us, his students. Wherever we may go, we must carry on his vision. And that's a vision of a _world_ united."

As everyone rose to say their last goodbyes, Logan turned away and slipped back inside. Everyone probably thought him callous for not attending or for not shedding a tear, but the reality was that he felt that he didn't deserve to be there since Xavier's death was his fault. And he honestly had no tears left to cry.

The plan was to go back to his room and sulk until he could privately say goodbye to Xavier, but agitated voices from below in the foyer caught his attention.

"… just leave like this? Right now?"

"I am sorry, but I must…"

"You could stay – "

"… cannot be like this."

Logan frowned, that sounded like Kurt and Kitty, and it didn't sound like an argument between teacher and student or even between friends.

"That's a bullshit excuse," she said heatedly. "They really need you more than we do? You'd choose them over us? Over _me_ – " Logan heard Kitty gasp and abruptly stop speaking.

There was a long pause before he heard Kurt sighed heavily. "Katherine," he said delicately, his voice firm, "I am _sixteen __**years**_ older than you."

Another long pause, until finally he heard heavy, defeated footsteps heading up the stairs. Tears streaking down her face, Kitty appeared in front of Logan moments later, nearly passing right through him. She jumped when she saw him.

Logan could honestly say that he'd never realized just how young Kitty looked. She was quite short for her seventeen years, but she always stood tall, radiating confidence that often bordered on arrogance. For that reason, she always seemed ten feet tall to him.

But now she stood before him, shoulders hunched, bottom lip sticking out slightly and impossibly wide chocolate brown eyes staring up at him, glassy and filled to the brim with unshed tears. She didn't look much older than twelve.

Logan pulled her into his arms and she fell into him, sobbing violently. It broke his heart to see someone as strong as self assured as her cling to him so desperately. He had half a mind to go catch up with Kurt and have at him. But he reconsidered that when he looked around the corner and saw that Kurt was standing about a foot away from the door, his entire posture rigid and trembling slightly. His tail, which was always moving as far as Logan knew, was completely limp, lying lifelessly on the ground behind him.

The louder Kitty's cries got, the more he seemed to shake, until finally his tail snapped to life, making a sound that wasn't dissimilar to a whip being cracked. "Ich kann nicht bei ihr bleiben," Logan heard him say to himself. "Ich kann das nicht für Sie, Katherine." (I can't stay with her. I can't do this to you, Katherine.)

He didn't even bother with the door, just teleported out of sight. Logan wasn't sure what to think of that. He'd seemed every bit as upset as she was. Was he trying to use their age difference as an excuse to distance himself from her?

Kitty mumbled into his shirt, but he didn't catch a thing that she said. Plenty of students passed them by on their way to their rooms, but none of them glanced for more than an instant, too overwhelmed by their own pain. When it was clear that she wasn't going to stop anytime soon, Logan picked her up and carried her to her room, which didn't happen to be too far from his.

While she was still quite young, she had a room to herself because a few months ago she'd begun phasing completely through her clothing and bedding in her sleep. Sure, she was in a room with three other girls, but everyone deserved a _little_ privacy. She'd moved into the wing where the teacher's slept, and while she had the smallest of the rooms in that wing, it was still quite large and she had it all to herself.

He walked right in and carefully laid her on her bed, facing away from him. Pryde wasn't her name for nothing, and Logan knew that she must be monumentally upset if she'd allowed him to carry her more than a few feet, let alone all the way to her room. And without complaint. He also knew that she wasn't all that fond of crying in front of others, but he still sat on the bed next to her and placed a hand on her back as a gesture of comfort, not sure what he could say to her.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered after a while. "Who the hell cries like this over a guy when a teacher that was practically their father has just died?"

"Everyone grieves differently," Logan said quietly. "Must not be just 'a guy' if he's got you this upset." He chose not to mention that he knew it was Kurt. Unfortunately, that meant that he couldn't mention how upset the German had been about their exchange as well. He could only hope that Kurt someday decided to come back and at least talk to Kitty. He had to realize that this distance was hurting them both.

Honestly, the age difference – while a bit surprising – didn't bother Logan as much as he would've thought. Physically, he himself was about eleven years older than Ororo. Literally, the age gap was closer to one hundred and fifty. He wasn't in much of a position to judge, especially when there were much worse choices than someone as kind hearted as Kurt.

Still, he never would've guessed that they felt _this_ strongly about each other. He'd caught a few signs that suggested that she harbored a small crush on Kurt, and all of the hours spent helping her with combat techniques had seemed like a teacher doting on his favorite student. But that crying had been borne of more than a crush, his posture much more than a teacher saddened by grief he'd caused a student. They seemed downright brokenhearted.

Kitty only huffed in response to Logan's statement, drawing her knees up under her chin in a fetal position. Logan moved his hand away from her, knowing that Kitty handled her emotions differently than Lee or Marie did. "You want to be alone?" Curling herself up tighter, she nodded. Logan left silently, knowing that there were two other girls that he ought to check up on.

Lee was first. She seemed to be grieving as much as anyone else about Xavier's death, but her eyes were also accusing as she glared up at Logan. He nearly flinched. "I want to fight," she said as soon as he sat on her bed.

Logan raked his fingers through his hair. It was only a matter of time before she demanded to be a part of the team. "Against John?"

"Pyro," she snapped immediately. "Magneto, that old bastard, sucked out any humanity that John may've had left in him."

"John still has a soul," he reasoned. It suddenly occurred to him that he was likely the _last_ person that ought to be handing out relationship advice. He and Ororo were… Quite honestly, he wasn't sure what the hell they were anymore. A few days ago they'd been at each other's throats. Things had changed so drastically in those few days that his relationship with her wasn't in the forefront of his mind.

"I know he has a soul," Lee said, quickly scrubbing away tears. "I tried to show him that, but I honestly don't think he cares. He kept telling me that a war was coming and that he was needed for a cause that he actually believed in…" Her sad expression turned enraged and the lamp on her nightstand exploded. Her roommates, who'd all huddled onto one bed across the room and were talking quietly amongst themselves, jumped and yelped in surprise.

"God_damn_ it!" Lee screeched. Another lamp exploded and she just about lost it. Her hands began glowing a multitude of bright colors and the scent of gunpowder intensified enough to scratch Logan's throat. Her eyes were wide as they darted around the room frantically, possibly searching for something that she wanted to destroy. But he'd be damned if he let her blow up the entire room or even another lamp.

He framed her face and looked her right in the eye. "Stop it," he said, hoping that that one command would slip past the wall of anger and distress. It did, and her hands stopped glowing. She blinked a few times before she looked at her now normal hands and balled them into fists, hitting her knees. "I guess _that's_ why I'm not on the team," she said bitterly.

"You're getting _so_ much better," he told her honestly. "If we were going on any other mission, I'd say yes in a heartbeat, because I _know_ that you can handle your emotions. But John is the one trigger that you can't get away from."

"And he's going to be right at the front lines with Magneto," she muttered. Her expression changed from sour to fearful as she looked back up at Logan. "Don't let anyone kill him," she begged, her voice cracking. "I know he's turned into an asshole, and I know he might deserve it, but – "

"Stop it," he said again. "Why on earth would anyone kill him?"

Well…

Lee frowned at him. Logan wasn't sure of John's exact age, but he had to be at least eighteen by now, a legal adult. He was responsible for his actions, but he was still no more than a delinquent that'd been horribly manipulated. Prison was likely where he was headed if he got captured, but if he put up a fight and the authorities thought that they had not choice but to put him down...

Logan was truly honest with himself, though, he didn't think that Magneto would let that happen, if only for the fact that Pyro was a fiercely loyal and powerful ally to his cause. And Ororo would be _damned _if she let anything happen to that boy. Logan too would step up in his defense, though he might first lay John out to defuse the situation.

"He'll be fine," Logan said finally. "He's strong. But if it comes to a showdown, you know we won't let anyone kill him." That much he could promise her.

She still seemed a bit uneasy, but that answer satisfied her enough that Logan was okay with leaving her to herself for the rest of the night. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze and got up to go look for Marie. She wasn't in her room, despite the fact that Ororo had told the students to stay in their rooms for the evening. It didn't much surprise him that a lot of the students weren't obeying. He heard quite a few of them sneaking around, even caught a few in the act. He didn't bat an eye at any of them and received countless grateful smiles in exchange for that.

He was about ready to give up his search for her when he caught the sound of sure and determined footsteps heading for the front door and the lingering scent of peppermint in the hall. He rounded the corner in time to see Marie heading for the door, a traveling bag in her hand and her long trench coat on.

She was going to get the Cure. Logan sighed. "You need a lift, kid?" He wasn't going to drive her, but he didn't mind giving her the keys to one of the many cars in the garage.

Startled, she waited a beat before she turned to face him. For a moment she looked quite guilty, but she took a deep breath and fixed herself with what she probably hoped was a confident expression. Clearly, she knew that he knew where she was going, and she was prepared to tell him off if he tried to stop her. "No."

Logan slowly stepped up to her with a knowing look. "Where are you going?"

She gave him a look that seemed to say, _as if you couldn't hazard a guess_. "You don't know what it's like to be afraid of your powers, to be afraid to get close to anybody."

Logan shook his head wearily. She'd never know just how wrong she was. "Yeah, I do."

She shook her head too. "Not like this. I want to be able to _touch_ people, Logan. A hug, a handshake… a kiss." She blushed furiously and looked away.

"Sex?" he asked flatly.

Her entire face turned scarlet. "Eventually," she mumbled.

He wasn't going to hold that against her. Kissing was great. Sex was even better. But more than that, people needed contact to survive, physical or otherwise. It was why Kitty had clung to him as she'd cried; it was what had kept Lee from losing her temper and possibly blowing up an entire room. People _needed_ to be touched. Simple, skin-to-skin contact.

But Marie could only do it through a layer of clothing. It had to be driving her insane.

Still, he had to be sure of the reason _why_ she was doing it. If she was getting the Cure for herself, then great. But if she was doing it because Bobby was pressuring her or because Remy kept taunting her with raunchy innuendos, he'd skin them both alive. "I hope you're not doing this for some boy," he warned. She looked away, as though remembering something as painful as it was infuriating. Logan sighed. "Look, if you want to go, then go. Just be sure it's what _you_ want." He couldn't make her listen. All he could do was try to let at least a few of his words sink in.

She gave him a strange look, like she wasn't sure if she ought to believe him. "Shouldn't you be telling me to stay? To go upstairs and unpack? Or to at least bring someone with me?"

He lifted an eyebrow at her. "You're more than welcome to go ask the Cajun to go with you. He looks like someone that can navigate streets just fine."

She shook her head, but Logan didn't miss the brief moment of consideration on her eyes. "That's the _last_ thing I need," she mumbled.

"Or Bob – "

"Absolutely not," she said flatly.

Logan blinked in surprise. Why did bringing Remy merit more consideration than bringing Bobby? Again, he hoped that she wasn't doing this because she was mad at him about something, but he'd said all that he could. The rest was up to her. "I'm not your father," he told her. "I'm your friend. Just be careful out there. And think about what I said, Rogue."

He turned to go, but she said one last thing. "Marie."

Logan turned back to her. _Everyone _called her Rogue, even him, if only out loud. As far as he knew, not even Bobby called her by her given name. "Marie," he agreed with a smile.

They stared at each other for a long moment before she stepped forward and threw her arms around him, careful not to let her skin touch him. "You may not be a father," she told him, "but you're damn good at it."

Logan smirked and wrapped his arms around her as well. "Practicing for when I have my own little girl," he responded.

Marie pulled away and gave him a knowing smile. "And if you have a boy?"

"Tough love isn't out of style."

She chuckled and made her way for the door. "Goodbye, Logan."

"Be safe, Marie," he told her, heading down the hall. He barely made it around the corner before he heard a thick accent that could only belong to one man.

"Where you think you goin to, chere?"

"That's none of your business," Marie answered flatly. "And I wish you'd stop calling me that."

"Ya eyes tell Remy that ya don't mind too much no more."

Logan sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. He was emotionally spent. He'd put a lot of energy into talking to those three girls, and listening to Marie argue with Remy before she left did _not_ appeal. Besides, of the three of them, Marie certainly wasn't as fixated on Bobby or even Remy as Lee was on John or Kitty on Kurt. She could handle herself, and he was convinced that she would make her own decision regardless of what the Cajun had to say to her. Logan was ready to go to bed.

But fate had other ideas.

For no reason at all, Logan decided that he wanted to take the long way to his room, passing Xavier's office in the process. He glanced at the door in passing, and heard soft crying coming from the other side. He sighed heavily. If it was someone that didn't want to be bothered, then that was fine with him. But if not…

There were only a few possibilities as to who might be crying in Xavier's office, of all places. Emma and Betsy were among them, and Logan didn't doubt that either woman would rip him a new one if he caught them crying, or worse, tried to offer them comfort.

He concentrated on his curiosity, knowing that if either woman was on the other side of the door that they'd tell him to get lost. After a long while, he received a reply from Betsy.

"_Would you shut up_," she said tiredly. "_It's not me or Emma. Stop thinking so loud and just go in._"

Well, the next likely options were Hank or Ororo, and the sounds on the other side of the door were decidedly feminine. Upon opening the door, he found it was indeed Ororo. Only the lamp on Xavier's desk was on, but Ororo sat in a far corner of the room that the light barely reached. She was sitting on the couch, holding a picture frame in one hand and a tall glass filled with a clear liquid in the other.

She took a healthy swig of it and set the glass aside. Logan gave her a pointed look, which she returned with equal annoyance despite the tears. "It's water," she said flatly. "I know better than to drink alcohol when I'm so emotionally unstable. I've been crying so much that I'm dehydrated, but I guess crying is better than throwing a tantrum like I did before…"

He wasn't sure which tantrum she was speaking of, but decided that it really didn't matter. He didn't want her to repeat either tantrum. _Ever_.

He could only nod as he looked between her and the door hesitantly. He didn't want to leave her alone like this, but he wasn't quite sure where they stood. The feeling was so uncomfortable that he almost wished he'd stayed to listen in on Remy and Marie fuss at each other.

He cleared his throat. "You want me to leave?"

She stared off into space for a long moment before she shrugged and sank back into her seat. "If you want to," she said quietly, turning her attention back to the photo that sat in her lap.

Taking that as an invitation – or perhaps a silent plea – to stay, Logan closed the door and went to sit in the armchair opposite her. She tossed the picture frame to him and he caught it easily. The picture looked like it had been taken right outside the front doors on a beautiful sunny day. In the middle were Xavier and Hank, smiling proudly at the camera. Rather than his business suit, Hank was wearing an X-Men uniform, and even the picture showed that he seemed much more comfortable in his own skin. Xavier was dressed as sharp as ever, and the look on his face showed just how happy he was to be among the other people in the picture.

Remy and Ororo were to their right, each with an arm around each other's shoulders. While Ororo wore her uniform proudly, Remy wore his same trench coat and fedora. He held a glowing card poised above her head – possibly to cut her hair – and Ororo held a bolt of lightning ominously close to castrating him. Both wore winning smiles, as though nothing at all was amiss between them. The sight made the corner of Logan's mouth kick up in a brief smirk.

To Xavier and Hank's left stood Scott and Emma. While Scott was wearing his usual uniform and visor, Emma was wearing something that was probably of her own creation. The leather was all white, and while she had a cape like Ororo did, her top was cut off the shoulders and ended just under her breasts, leaving plenty of skin bare. She stood in front of Scott, her head resting against his shoulder and a lazy smile on her face. Scott's arms were wrapped around her waist securely, and he too wore a happy smile.

Sitting below them in a cluster were five other people that Logan didn't recognize. He did, however, recognize the smiling red-head in the middle. Jean's expression was youthful and carefree. She fit right in with everyone around her.

"That picture must be seven years old," Ororo commented quietly.

"You all look so happy," he said, for lack of anything else to say.

Ororo nodded, wiping away tears that didn't want to stop falling. "We were. And the more people that came, the happier we all were. We wanted to help them. Everything was great until…" She clenched her fist, not meeting his eye.

So she _did_ blame him for everything that had gone wrong since his arrival. That knowledge cut him much deeper than he was willing to let on. He nearly got up to leave when she sighed heavily and continued speaking. "Things weren't the same after Emma left. Soon she needed help and Remy, Sean, Ruth, Sam, Paige… they all went to Massachusetts. Then Hank began working as a politician…" She took another large drink of her water before giving Logan a look that he couldn't quite place. "You may find this hard to believe, but… we were all starting to fall apart before you came."

Logan searched her features, unsure of whether or not he was interpreting the meaning of her words correctly. Was she saying that his arrival had _saved_ them?

They'd only been apart for about two months, but in some aspects she felt like a total stranger to him. He wasn't sure what she wanted him to say or do. He carefully placed the picture on the coffee table between them and then noticed that she was playing with something in her hand. A brief flash of silver was all Logan needed to identify the object as John's lighter.

"The fact that everything more or less went to hell after that is coincidental," she said after a long pause. She stopped playing with the lighter and stared down at it, more tears falling that she didn't bother to wipe away. "And boy, did it _ever_ go to hell," she whispered.

_Fuck it_, he thought, getting up. Ororo didn't even look as Logan walked around the table and sat down right next to her. She stiffened, but didn't move away from him. Logan didn't move to touch her, didn't utter a word, just in case his presence was the only comfort that she wanted from him. He was rewarded for his patience when Ororo finally leaned into him and buried her face in the crook of his shoulder, continuing to cry silently.

He wasn't sure how long they sat like that, but Ororo hardly made a sound as she cried. The only evidence that she was crying at all was her slightly abnormal breathing and the cold tears that soaked into his shirt. Her skin had always seemed a bit colder than anyone else's to him, but now it felt downright glacial, even compared to what he remembered.

After what felt like a few hours, her breathing became deeper and Logan could only assume that she'd fallen asleep. Knowing that she was a heavy sleeper when she was exhausted, Logan moved her into a more comfortable position, curling her up onto the couch and resting her head on his lap. He began stroking her hair absentmindedly, unsure if he ought to bring her up to her room, or if he should leave her to sleep on the couch in the office. Or maybe he could take her to his room…

He shook his head. No. They may have made some strides in the right direction, but it had been under stressful circumstances, and out of necessity. They weren't nearly ready to pick up where they'd left off as if nothing had happened. He doubted that they'd _ever_ move on as if _nothing_ had happened. Regardless of that, he knew that he couldn't take her to his room or stay in her room while she slept.

He lost himself in thought, unaware of how much time had passed with him simply sitting on the couch, stroking Ororo's hair as she slept on his lap. But, lost as he was, his eyes snapped to the door as the handle quietly turned and Remy came in. "She 'sleep?" he asked softly.

Logan nodded, watching Remy like a hawk as he closed the door behind him and sat in the armchair that he had previously occupied. When Remy said nothing else, Logan resumed stroking her hair, but kept his senses sharply on the man across from him.

"Calm down some," Remy said after a while. "I ain't gonna do nothin. Just wanted to see how my Stormy was doin." Logan tried not to show the irritable twitch that his jaw gave at the endearment, as he looked down at Ororo. Even in her sleep, that troubled frown was firmly in place, and there were dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. "She's been better," he muttered

"Much better," Remy agreed. "You love her?"

Logan's hand froze mid-stroke. That hadn't been at all what he'd expected the Cajun to say. But he found himself drinking in her features as he considered the answer to that. Love didn't begin to cover it. She was so many things to him, and it seemed that it was taking this tragedy of Jean and the professor and Scott for him to realize that again. Love was among one of his many feelings for her, but it certainly wasn't the only one.

Remy nodded, as though he'd heard all of those thoughts. Or perhaps he'd felt them. Maybe empathy was a type of telepathy? If that were the case, he might be able to decipher Logan's thoughts based on the emotions he was radiating. "You wanna know why I was so pissed off at ya?"

Logan shrugged as he resumed stroking her hair. "She told you about our fight." It wasn't a question. "Obviously you helped her get through that…"

Remy rolled his ruby red eyes. "That was just a friendly kiss," he said flatly. "Think maybe ya need to get out more if ya can't tell the difference between two people that are practically siblings and two people that actually want each other. And as far as ya'lls fight, yeah, she did tell me 'bout it. Also said that it was her fault."

Logan stopped again, frowning at Remy. "I'm the one that said – "

"She told me what you said. Then she told me what _she_ said. She told me all kinds of stories bout how she been mistreatin ya and how she ain't good 'nough for you, how it killed her that you was mad at her but that it's probably for the best that you stay away from her… You want I should keep goin?"

Logan looked down at the woman sleeping on his lap, appalled. What the hell made her think that she'd been so terrible to him? She'd been a little overly dramatic at times, but hell, he had too! Other than what had happened after T'Challa's departure, he couldn't think of an instance when she'd truly done him wrong. She'd given him a verbal lashing more times than he could count, but in the past two months he'd evened the score with his own sharp tongue. When had she ever done something totally and completely vindictive?

Remy watched him closely, seemingly reading every single emotion with great care. "You ain't know nothin bout that?"

Logan shook his head slowly. "No. _Hell_ no."

He hadn't really been aware that Remy was tense, but it was blatantly obvious when all of that tension seemed to seep out of him in one big rush. "Listen here, Logan: I was actin like a jackass. I admit to that, but I ain't gonna apologize. The reason got I all hot and bothered is 'cause I thought _you_ was the one who made her feel like she was at fault. She got a habit of blaming herself for _everything_. That comes from too many times of _his_ _highness_" – he spit the title out as though it left a bad taste in his mouth – "tellin' her that _she_ was in the wrong."

His claws jumped halfway out of his fist, but he quietly retracted them when Ororo stirred beneath him. 'His highness' could be none other than T'Challa. Did the man know how much everyone around here truly hated him? If he did, why the hell had he come? Was he really that arrogant? "I should've killed him when I had the chance," Logan growled quietly.

Remy sat back, putting his hands behind his head and kicking his boots up onto the coffee table. "You n' me both, homme," he agreed. "All the friends 'Roro's got, there oughtta be a bounty on his head."

_That_ was an understatement.

Logan looked up at Remy, who now looked quite relaxed. In fact, the more tension that seemed to seep out of Ororo, the more the tension seemed to seep out of Remy. Remy looked content to watch Logan relax her.

It suddenly occurred to him that his first instincts about Remy had been correct; he was like a brother to her. Logan had only witnessed the turbulent brother/sister relationship between her and Scott, and it had been nothing like this. Ororo was clearly closer to Remy than she had been to Scott, but their relationship was every bit as platonic, despite that friendly kiss that had infuriated him. Logan felt his own tense muscles relax at that knowledge.

"Guess all we can do for her is reverse the damage," Remy said after a while. He pointed an accusing finger at Logan, his red eyes glowing brighter. "Most weight is gonna fall on you. I felt what you feel for her, but she ain't no empath, and her confidence was shot to shit long before you waltzed up in here. You gotta tell her, _show_ her, or she not gonna believe that you love her. And remember this: she may be damaged, but she ain't broken, hear?"

Logan nodded and looked down at her once more. As though she'd sensed the gravity of the conversation, her muscles had tensed and her frown had deepened. Logan touched her cheek lightly, tracing the trail of salt left by her tears.

Damaged, not broken.

Logan suddenly wondered if that was the problem. Perhaps she wasn't broken, but the damage was so extensive that it was basically the same. The only difference was that the pain was slower and more agonizing. Logan had his work cut out for him, but he was up to the challenge. She was worth it, and if there was even the slightest chance of seeing her wholly repaired, then he'd work himself to death.

The tension slowly left her the longer he touched her and, knowing that he wasn't going to get any sleep, Logan was content to touch her for the rest of the night to allow her a few blissful hours of escape from her personal hell. Remy seemed fine with that approach as well, because after a while he nodded to Logan and quietly slipped out of the office, leaving them to each other.


	86. Newcomer

Hooray Monday! Here's another chapter for my loyal readers, but there's a bit of bad news.

First the good news! 1.) I'm finally moving to Arizona on Wednesday! I'm so excited that I can't stop moving for more than a few minutes at a time! 2.) The next chapter is more or less ready and will only require a bit of editing before I post it on Thursday.

The bad news: Everything is going to be so chaotic in the next two weeks or so that I might not be able to make my 'two posts a week' deadline. MIGHT! I've been pouring over files like mad and trying to get all of that stuff organized, but right now it's ten chapters of bits and pieces here and there. If all else fails, I'll at least try to put up one chapter every week. It's really only the next four or five chapters that are giving me trouble.

Just an update in case next Monday rolls around and you find yourself staring at the computer screen wondering 'why have you LIED to me? !'

As always, thank you Wilson and enjoy the chapter everyone!

* * *

Ororo had slept until dawn the next morning. Logan was sure she would've slept longer had that cursed sun not crept in and shined right in her eyes. She blinked blearily and frowned around her in confusion as she sat up. Her eyes widened in shock when she noticed that Logan was still there, and self-consciously raked her fingers through her hair. She was used to wrapping her hair at night, and was never very pleased when she woke up to find that she'd forgotten and that her hair was a mess. Logan rather liked it that way, but he sure as hell wasn't going to comment on that now.

"You're still here?" she asked, sounding a little shocked and _very _groggy. She blinked hard and shook her head. "Of course you're _here_. I meant – "

Logan nodded. He knew what she'd meant. "I wanted to stay." _With you_, he added silently.

Ororo looked away from him, rubbing at the salt trails on her cheeks and muttering a quiet, "Thank you," as she stood to leave the office. But as she reached the door, she hesitantly turned to him. "Could you – if you don't mind, that is… whenever you get the chance…" She shut her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. Logan waited patiently, knowing that she wasn't the most articulate before she'd had her morning shower. "Could you tell the other X-Men to gather down here after breakfast? We have to discuss what to do about… this." She gestured vaguely around her, and Logan could only assume that she meant the school.

Now that Xavier was gone, who was going to run the school? Hank had his duties as a politician, Betsy, Emma, and Remy had their own school to worry about, and Logan sure as hell wasn't up to the task. Ororo would probably make a good headmistress, but he wasn't sure if that was the best idea while she was already under such emotional stress. He knew she could do it, but certainly not alone.

And the only other option was to close the school.

Logan nodded. They certainly did need to talk. "I'll tell them."

She gave him a weak smile and left, quietly closing the door behind her. After a few moments of watching the sun rise out the window, he left too. He made himself a quick breakfast and ate while he had the kitchen to himself. After that, he went to the guest room that Hank had taken and told him the situation. He passed Kitty after she'd done her ritual morning exercises on the roof and told her as well, and she listlessly said that she'd pass along the message to Bobby and Peter.

Betsy possibly sensed the buzz and telepathically informed him that she and Emma were going to try using Cerebro to find out where Jean was, so they would be absent. Logan let fly what Xavier had told him about Jean taking control of Cerebro and using it to amplify her power, and Betsy boredly shot back that they were the telepaths and they knew damn well what Jean could do if they messed up.

Logan couldn't find Remy, but didn't go out of his way to do so. He was bound to check up on Ororo, so she'd probably tell him.

He took his own shower and dressed and by the time he made it back down he found nearly everyone already situated in Xavier's adjoining study, minus Peter (who'd been helping with some heavy lifting, Logan had seen).

Kitty sat moping on one of the couches, lethargically staring off into space. Hank sat on the couch opposite her, wearing a tired expression as he too stared at nothing in particular. Bobby, who was sitting in the armchair, was anxiously looking between all the adults in the room. Remy, it seemed had taken up the dark corner that Betsy normally would've occupied. Ororo was sitting on the arm of the air opposite Bobby, her expression concentrated, and Logan walked in without a word to anyone and faced the window. If he stood back at just the right distance, he could see everyone's reflections. The mood was so thick that even Logan felt slightly more depressed than he already had been.

The silence dragged on for a while before Bobby sighed heavily. "So what now? What do we do?"

Ororo shrugged. "I don't know, Bobby." Logan knew that none of them had really thought that far ahead. They were still too much in shock

"Professor Xavier started this school," Hank said tiredly. "Perhaps it's best that it end with him."

Ororo didn't comment, but Kitty gave a shallow nod. "We'll have to tell the students that they're going home. We should start calling parents."

"What?" Bobby sounded outraged, both at the suggestion and who it was coming from.

"She's right, Robert," Hank said.

Bobby frowned. "Most of us don't _have_ anywhere to go."

Logan remembered the fiasco at Bobby's house a year ago, and wouldn't be surprised if his parents had disowned him for that little episode. He partially felt responsible, as he'd suggested that they go to Bobby's house, and he should've been in control of Pyro. But he'd been shot, and he'd been shot because that little bastard brother of Bobby's had called the police on them because Bobby was getting more attention. Logan truly felt that his brother was more to blame, but that didn't matter if Bobby had been the one to suffer the punishment.

"I can't believe this," he exclaimed. "I can't believe we're not going to fight for this school!"

Logan turned and looked at Bobby and saw that he was looking accusingly at Ororo. "Charley's dead, kid," he said, turning back to the window. Perhaps a bit callous, but the truth couldn't be simplified any more than that.

"So _what_?"

"So there ain't no school," Remy explained patiently from his dark corner. "Ain't really got no choice."

"There's _always_ a choice," Bobby snapped, rounding on Remy. "But what do you care? This isn't your home!"

Remy's eyes, which had been a steady gray since the day of Xavier's death, flashed black in an instant. "Check that tone, boy," he snarled. "This place been my home since before you was born!"

"Probably before Rogue was born too," Bobby snapped back.

Logan turned around and jumped between them just in time to avoid Remy knocking Bobby to the ground. Logan gave Remy a level look, and the Cajun snorted in disgust before going back to his dark corner of the room. Logan turned back to Bobby with a look of disappointment. "Learn to pick your fights," was all Logan said. No more needed to be said. Judging by the look on Bobby's face, he knew that he'd just about had his ass handed to him.

But he kept digging his own grave.

"Why the hell can't you find someone your own goddamn age?"

"Age ain't nothin but a number," Remy said, seemingly putting a leash on his anger. "But it seems that, for some such as yourself, age correlates with maturity. She miles ahead of you in that respect, so can't blame her for wantin to upgrade."

Bobby's fists turned blue and seemed to coat with a layer of ice in his anger, and he looked like he was about to leap at Remy. Figuring that Bobby wanted to learn the hard way, Logan nearly stepped out of their way, but everyone froze and turned to the door when they heard a timid, "Excuse me."

Everyone seemed a little dazzled by him, and even Logan could admit that he was a bit struck by the man's beauty. He had a face that belonged on a movie poster – a leading man capable of breaking every heart alive and jump-starting a few that weren't. He was tall and lean, with his golden hair swept messily back from his face. The scent wafting off of him was similar to the scent of vanilla, Logan realized. He also wore a long overcoat, and there was a strange hump between his shoulders that made the coat ride up tremendously.

Logan frowned. Was it a backpack?

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, clearly picking up on the vibe. "I know this is a bad time…" His body language and manner told Logan that he fully expected to make things worse.

"As good a time as any," Remy muttered to himself. "You mighta just saved a life."

The newcomer cleared his throat uncomfortably and looked around the room, clearly not sure of whom he ought to address. "I was told that this was a safe place for mutants," he said hopefully.

"It was, son," Hank said tiredly.

The man looked crestfallen, as though this had been his last resort and it had been ripped from him much too quickly. Ororo opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, then looked around the room, a frown slowly forming on her face. Finally, she stood up, giving the man such a fierce look of determination that he looked a little frightened by it.

"It still is," she said firmly. "We'll find you a room." She turned to Hank, fixing him with a look that said that there was no room for argument. "Tell all the students that this school stays open. This _is_ our home, and as long as I'm here, this _will_ be a safe haven for mutants. If that means that I must accept the responsibilities of running a school and taking over as headmistress, then so be it."

Logan tried to catch her eyes. He wasn't sure if this was such a good idea, but he didn't have to look in her eyes to see that she wasn't going to be dissuaded. He wanted to be sure that she knew what she was doing, but Betsy and Emma chose that moment to walk in.

"Anything," he asked tensely.

"Not a damn thing," Emma answered in a low tone, pausing to stare at the man that wanted a place to stay with a dispassionate expression. "You're a new face."

But Betsy was sizing him up with a look of disgust. "Oh _look_," she commented with a sneer. "It's the Worthington brat."

He flinched, but said nothing in his defense. "Warren Worthington the third, yes," he muttered self consciously.

"And to what do we owe the _extreme_ pleasure, Warren Worthington _the third_," she asked, her tone suggesting that it was anything but.

His gaze traveled to the floor, apparently unable to bare her harsh gaze. Logan felt like telling Betsy to back off, but he was also a little curious as to why the son of the man who had invented the Cure was with them. Surely he was a mutant, but had his father disowned him and cut off his money supply because he wouldn't change? Or had he perhaps run away, offended by the very idea that his father wanted him to be human and didn't love him as he'd been made?

"For what it's worth," Warren said quietly, "I apologize for my father's excessive actions. It's my fault that any of this happened in the first place."

"Don't blame yourself to appease Betsy's foul temper, darling," Emma said calmly. She almost sounded like her old self, albeit a bit tired. "She doesn't really like anyone."

"But it is true," he said quietly.

"How do you figure?"

His eyes darted around the room, as though he wanted to make sure that there were no extra eyes. Logan felt bad for the guy. He looked like a rabbit that had stumbled into a den of wolves.

Hesitantly, Warren shrugged off his raggedy looking trench coat. His hunched back was more prominent through the thin gray shirt he wore, but he peeled that off too. Underneath all of those clothes, he was certainly as tall and skinny as he looked. But, like Kurt, his muscles were well defined and he could probably do a lot of damage if he chose to. Last to come off was a complex leather harness reminiscent of a straight jacket that left only his arms free.

Once that hit the floor two gleaming, alabaster wings spread out behind him, so wide they scraped both ends of the room. There was a collective gasp from almost everyone, while Logan simply whistled.

He knew that the wings of a goose could propel it through the sky for thousands of miles, and the wing of a swan – such a thing of poetic beauty – could break a man's arm. So how much more powerful must his be, the wings of a man? How strong were the muscles capable lifting a two-hundred plus pound man from the ground and hurling him through the air? He could probably lift a car with those wings.

"Well, aren't those _magnificent_," Emma breathed, taking a few steps closer to inspect. Her fingertip caressed a feather and Warren's wings quivered a little and arched up slightly, making him appear slightly taller. "Thank you," he said quietly, looking down as his cheeks began to flush.

Betsy seemed to be awestruck too. She stared at him in undisguised shock and wonder for a long moment before she cleared her throat and muttered something along the lines of 'raging whore' under her breath about the exchange between him and Emma. The blonde smirked and shook her head, but said nothing in her defense.

A feather on Warren's right wing brushed Kitty ever so slightly and she irritably shooed it away, scowling. Warren jerked and his wing snapped back to his body, as though for protection. "I'm sorry," he said, a worried expression on his face as though he'd offended her somehow.

Kitty looked like she was about to tell him not to worry about it, but Emma opened her mouth first. "Don't apologize to her either. She's pissing and moaning because her little blue elf didn't give her a kiss goodb– _**AHH!**_"

Kitty moved faster than Logan ever would've guessed imaginable. Her feet had been kicked up on the coffee table, and she used that momentum to kick herself backwards and through the couch. When she was on solid ground, she only needed two steps to close the distance between herself and Emma before she drew back and punched her square in the jaw. The blonde screeched in surprise, staggering back. Taking advantage of her surprise, Kitty landed another solid punch on the other side of Emma's face and kneed her in the stomach.

Emma went to the ground, but Kitty stopped attacking her, towering over her form. Logan wondered why she'd stopped, but it suddenly occurred to him that Emma had frozen Kitty in place, just like she'd done to Logan a few days ago. She coughed and spit out a bit of blood, growling violently under her breath. She trembled with palpable rage as she took her time getting to her feet. Her entire arm crystallized and she grabbed Kitty's throat, murder in her eyes. "You impudent little _**SHIT! !**_"

Betsy was between them before Logan could open his mouth to tell Emma to let her go. The butterfly appeared on her face and she placed her hand on Kitty's shoulder. Apparently that touch restored Kitty's powers, because she phased and Emma's hand closed around nothing. Betsy pushed Kitty out of the way and turned her full attention to Emma, but after a second Kitty tried to jump at Emma again. Had she not observed the scenario between Bobby and Remy not three minutes ago?

She made it through Betsy before she was caught and gracelessly thrown to the ground. Betsy towered over Kitty, her expression just as disappointed as Logan's had been. It bordered on déjà vu. "I'll be the first to admit that she probably deserved that," Betsy said to Kitty, "but you took a cheap shot. Do it again and I might let her choke you."

"Like I needed your goddamn interference," Kitty spat, getting to her feet.

Betsy stepped aside, giving Kitty a full view of Emma, who was still breathing deeply in barely suppressed rage. "Don't get smart with me, brat," Betsy snapped. "You want a fight? Have at her."

Kitty's cheeks turned pink in her anger. It was clear to Logan that she wanted to rub at her throat and cough, but she clenched her fist and breathed as evenly as she was able until she got herself under control. She wouldn't show any weakness while Emma was watching her, just as Emma wasn't rubbing at the bruises that were already starting to form on both sides of her face.

Kitty muttered something unflattering under her breath about both telepaths as she walked out the door, giving Emma a rough shoulder check as she passed. Betsy just chuckled darkly, but Emma's hand crystallized again and she reached out for Kitty's hair. Betsy grabbed onto her wrist to stop her and gave her a level look. "Don't act like you've never taken a swing at someone for saying something like that," she said flatly.

Emma shook her off with an annoyed expression. "Screw you," she snapped as she walked out the door as well. Logan worried for a second that Emma was going to follow Kitty, but Betsy's purple eyes locked with his and he saw through her eyes that they were going in opposite directions; Kitty to the rooftop and Emma to Scott's room, where she'd been staying ever since she'd learned of his death

"… ain't told you because you ain't no kinda good friend. Go see for yourself. Rogue been gone since last night."

"Why are you doing this? Just stay _away_ from her!"

"She ain't your property. She don't belong to nobody but herself. You best not forget that, especially if – for _whatever_ reason – she decides not to kick your sorry ass to the curb."

Logan turned in time to see that Bobby looked like he wanted to take a step closer to Remy, but it seemed that he'd actually learned something from the exchange between Kitty and Emma and was smart enough to know when he was outmatched. He turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, taking the steadily dropping temperature with him.

Logan could only sigh. He never would've guessed it, but he was getting sick of all the fighting. It was only making him tired, possibly because he'd been wound up since… Well, if he really thought back, he'd been wound up for _weeks_.

Warren was shuffling uncomfortably in place, clearly unsure of what to do. As Logan drifted past him and out of the room, he couldn't help but humorlessly say, "Welcome home."

He climbed the stairs with the intention of going to his room, but suddenly he got the urge to visit Xavier's grave. Frowning thoughtfully, he reasoned that he could do it later, but he physically couldn't move another step up the stairs. He looked down at the stairs, as though they had the answers. Had Betsy frozen him? Or perhaps Emma? _What the hell_…

_"Logan,"_ a gentle voice whispered.

He started, looking around him wildly. He was sure he'd…

His blood ran dry.

_Jean._

He turned right around and headed straight for Xavier's grave.


	87. Start Over

Arizona is... hot. And busy! I've been moving nonstop since I got here, but now I've FINALLY got a moment to post. So here it is! Thank you Watson for your help and enjoy everyone!

* * *

He wasn't sure how long he'd been standing there, looking down at the flickering flames that had been set at the base of Xavier's grave. Probably hours. Though it perhaps looked to anyone who might be watching him that he was half asleep, he was actually quite tense, listening to any and everything with his ears and his mind. At least, he tried to keep his mind open and receptive.

The longer he heard hearing nothing but the rustling of leaves in the breeze and a whole lot of silence in his mind, the more he began to convince himself that he'd been hearing things in the mansion, and had just been freaking himself out about not being able to move up the stairs. He sighed heavily. All of the tension was really starting to get to him. He'd give it another ten minutes before he –

"_Logan."_ He started, looking around. It was _her_. She sounded so close… _"Logan!"_ she said again, more insistently.

But who was talking to him? "Jean?"

He caught an image of her standing in the middle of a forest, as well as a lung full of ginger. Then another image of what looked like a large campsite. _"Logan… Where am I?"_

He blinked as his perceptions twisted. He tumbled through a cascade of way-points, memorizing a trail that he could easily follow that led closely to the hidden camp below a towering cliff. She was showing him how to get to her.

"_Logan Logan Logan…"_

Each cry was more insistent, the force of her desperation, need, and stark terror driving Logan to his knees.

"_Help me, Logan,"_ she begged. Both sets of his claws popped out, and though the haze of her fear he realized that she'd done it, and he knew _why_.

"_**Save**__ me, Logan!"_ The last was a whisper that he almost didn't catch.

And then it was over. Logan looked around hesitantly. He was still very much alone out in the garden. Shaking off the remnants of Jean's emotions, Logan found himself staring at Xavier's profile. He could've told Logan what to do in this situation. She wanted him to kill her, but should he? Should he hold onto hope that Jean could still be brought back?

"_This isn't your fault, Logan. I can't save her, but I truly believe that you can."_

Those had been Xavier's exact words. And Jean…

"_**Save**__ me, Logan!"_

He now knew where she was, which meant that she wanted him specifically to come for him. But what if he couldn't save her the way that she wanted _or_ the way that he wanted? Sure, Phoenix seemed more willing to listen to him for some reason, but was it only because she wanted to sleep with him? He knew nothing of what she _needed_. Perhaps that was why she was targeting him?

Logan slowly stood to his feet, debating whether or not he should go. Xavier believed in him, or so he'd said. He wanted to believe in himself, but how could he when this whole thing was mostly his fault?

He stared hard at Xavier's stone, a small part of him expecting to hear Xavier in the back of his mind with some words of wisdom. Hell, he'd take the old man thinking him incompetent.

But Logan had to make the decision for himself. He glanced at Scott's grave, his mind suddenly overwhelmed with grief and pity. He'd been Phoenix's pawn, and he'd died at her hands. All to watch Emma suffer, and it was clear that she had. That hadn't been Logan's fault in any way, but something about the whole thing ate at him.

He glanced back at Xavier's grave with a look of determination. He'd save Jean. Whatever it took – whatever it meant – he'd help her. Xavier believed he could save her. Jean believed he could too. He'd made this mess, and he was going to set it right.

Logan made his way straight up to his room, leaving the door open as he pulled out a travel bag and began looking around for what he ought to pack. Clothes, certainly, as he had a habit of getting them ripped to shreds in fights. If he was going to a base camp run by Magneto, he had to assume that it would be heavily guarded by mutants with various combat skills. He opened up his dresser drawers and began shoving anything inside the bag. He wasn't really sure of anything else that he'd truly need to pack, but didn't get much of a chance to consider anything more.

The scent of a rainforest after a downpour filled his lungs, and he caught the sound of Ororo standing at the threshold. _Fuck me_, he thought in exasperation, making a face. It was his fault for leaving the door open so carelessly. So much for his clean getaway…

But he kept throwing clothes into the bag, moving onto the next drawer. He wouldn't let her delay him. Delay meant more lives that would be on his shoulders.

"Where are you going," she asked casually.

"Where do you think," he responded tiredly.

"Emma and Betsy can't find her. What makes you think you can?"

"She told me where she was in my mind," he answered shortly.

"She called you," Ororo clarified in a clipped tone. When Logan didn't answer, her voice hardened and the air was suddenly charged with static. "She's gone Logan. She's not coming back." And he knew that she wasn't talking about Jean's physical departure with Magneto.

He shook his head. "You don't know that."

"Charles was like a father to her, and she killed him." He could tell that it was difficult for her to believe it, even as she said the words, but at the same time it was impossible for her to forgive.

Logan refused to give up that easily. "That wasn't Jean."

"No, it wasn't," she agreed. "It was Phoenix. The entire time it's been Phoenix. Jean died a year ago."

"The Jean I know is still in there," he maintained stubbornly, without a shred of rational evidence to back it up. "I need to reach her, find a way to bring her home."

"You truly believe that?"

"I have to." He took a deep breath, intending to go out the door without so much as looking at her.

She obviously had other ideas. "Listen – "

"Get out of my way," he muttered, trying to push past her. _Please don't do this. Not now._

She placed her hands on his chest to keep him in his room, her eyes imploring. "Why can't you see the truth?"

"Not my truth, Storm."

"Damn it, Logan, why can't you just let her _go? !"_

It was too much. Logan grabbed her and backed her against the door. "Because!" She looked up at him, waiting. But he wanted to say too many things, and words failed him. "Because…"

He grasped for something, anything to say. Because why? Because Jean was his friend? Because he felt that it was his fault that she was on the loose? Because if he hadn't awakened her then Xavier would still be alive? Because he still felt that somehow Ororo blamed him for _everything_ that had gone wrong in her life since he'd arrived?

Because letting go would mean accepting that his own fate would likely be the same as Phoenix's?

"Because you _love_ her," she accused, her voice pure acid.

Logan's mind stopped. He pulled away from her, attempting to collect his thoughts. He saw it in her eyes; the anger, the belief, the hurt, and even the acceptance. Ororo honestly thought that Logan was in love with Jean.

He took a few steps back, turning his back to her. How could he _begin_ to tell Ororo what was going through his mind? Remy had warned him that he needed to tell Ororo how he felt or else she wouldn't believe that it was true…

She seemed to misinterpret his silence as confirmation of her accusation. She stepped forward and spoke, her voice hard and imploring. "She made her choice. Now it's time to make ours. I told you, the second night that you stayed here, that I'd chosen my side, and I'm sticking by it. If you're with us, then be _with_ us. And if you're not…" She paused before sighing in defeat. "Just go."

She stomped out of the room and her scent followed after her. Logan took a few deep breaths, weighing his options carefully.

He could leave without a word.

He could try to explain to her why he felt that he had to go.

He could tell her he loved her.

But was _now_ the time to get into the problems between the two of them?

He wrestled with his feelings for a few more seconds before going after her. He couldn't leave it like this between them. If they had it out right here in the hall then so be it. He wasn't setting one foot outside the mansion until they'd come to some sort of understanding.

He reached her just as she was about to close herself into her room, and put a hand on the door to stop her. "What," she snapped.

Logan looked straight into her eyes, praying that she'd listen. "I _have_ to do this, Ororo," he told her, fighting to keep his voice even. "I need you to understand that. This is _my_ fault. I thought I knew better than the professor, and he paid for _my_ mistake with _his_ life. Everyone she hurts, everyone she kills, it falls on me. I honestly believe that Jean is still in there, but so long as she's hanging around Magneto, Phoenix is going to stay at the controls. She's my friend. I owe her this."

Ororo slowly opened her door and leaned against the frame, looking up at Logan. "Because you love her," she said flatly. It seemed to come out easier this time, which made Logan grind his teeth together.

"Look, I don't know why the hell everyone thinks that some imaginary feelings for Jean manifested themselves overnight, but let's set the record straight: I _do_ love Jean. I love her exactly the way that you do; like a sister. If one more goddamn person tries telling me that I'm _in_ love her – "

"Then what the hell is it," Ororo snapped. "You can't feel responsible for all this…"

_The hell I can't_, he thought. But it wasn't _only_ that he felt responsible. He debated whether or not to tell her what had been eating at him ever since he'd found out about Phoenix. It was clear that she no longer trusted him, and he was reluctant to trust her…

But someone had to be first. He took a deep breath. "What if I end up like her?" he asked, his voice quiet. "I know I'm not as powerful, but I'm just as hard to kill. What if I let Wolverine have control and I never get it back?" He looked up at her, sure that his fear was rolling off of him in waves and not caring in the slightest. "I could go on a rampage, controlled by no one! I could destroy everything around me with these claws. I could hurt, _kill __**everyone!**_"

Ororo looked like she was keeping tears back by sheer power of will. Every muscle in her body appeared to be locked, but she refused to let the tears fall. "What have I done to you," she whispered, shaking her head in disbelief.

Logan frowned at her. Of all the responses he'd expected, that certainly wasn't one of them. "What are you talking about?"

She took a deep breath and locked her eyes with his, though it seemed as though it took some effort on her part. "That will _never_ happen," she said firmly, ignoring his question. And he could see in her eyes that she truly meant it.

"And just how the hell do you know that?"

"Because I _know_ you. You're not two separate beings. Wolverine isn't some dual personality, nor is he a beast or a monster or anything else. _You_ are Wolverine. You think that you become someone else, but really, you're just losing your temper and riding out the waves of rage that consume you. You think that you revert back to yourself when that red veil and rage dissipates, but really you've just run out of steam. You're in control of what you're doing the entire time.

"Maybe you do some things that you think are brutal, that you're not very proud of, but it is you that's doing them. And know this; you're not a monster. You do what you do for a reason. Even in your fury, I know you wouldn't cut down someone that was undeserving. You wouldn't go on a rampage and destroy everything just because you can, and you won't kill anyone you… care about."

She sighed again and finally broke eye contact. "I know you have to do this. You're probably the only one that can. I just can't believe I…" She shook her head, then looked up at Logan with fire in her eyes. "You need to know this; everything – _everything that's happened_ – is my fault, not yours."

He opened his mouth to argue, but she stopped him by laying her fingertips across his lips, a gesture that seemed to him very much a caress. It suddenly occurred to him that he wasn't the only one held by the grip of primal emotions in that instant. "Look back on the year and a half that we've known each other, Logan. Really _look_. How many times have you been right? How many more times have I overreacted and used you as my own personal scapegoat?"

_A lot_, was the obvious answer, but he kept silent, wanting to listen to everything that she was saying and plan his response accordingly. _Damaged, not broken_. He'd be damned if he was the one to damage her more. This was an opportunity to start the process of healing her.

"Countless times," she said, answering her own question. "Admitting that doesn't make me a better person. It doesn't make me anything. But what I've done, _that_ makes me an absolute witch. Everyone hates Emma for what she does and how she acts. If anyone knew what I've been doing to you, they'd hate me just as much."

"For being mad at me?"

She frowned at him in confusion. "No. For treating you this way for no reason at all."

It wasn't for no reason. Unless... "So you weren't mad at me?"

Her expression turned from confused to annoyed. "Where the hell have you been the past two months?"

"Right here, doing exactly the same thing to you! Because I was mad. I admit I've been trying to push you away too. I can't remember with stark clarity, but in the back of my mind I _know_ that the people that I've gotten close to in the past have always gotten hurt. That's my rationale now and, while it's true, if I'd been asked why I was pushing you away last week, I would've said that it was payback.

"You were just as mad at me. But it sounds like you're saying that you've been trying to push me away from you because you thought you were the reason that I was so unhappy." When she didn't refute that statement, his shoulders slumped. "You know that's not true…"

"It's not _entirely_ true," she corrected.

"I know you can be a bit too sensitive, but I know that I can be too callous as well."

"Replay everything that you just said about being afraid that you'd end up like Jean. **I** did that!"

Logan blinked at her. And just how the hell did she figure _that? ! _"You crawled inside my mind and told me that I ought to be worried about something like that happening to me?"

Ororo scowled at him, but chose not to answer that question. "How many of the X-Men have been mad at you or have refused to listen to you? Do you think it's because they decided for themselves that they don't trust you?"

"No, but I don't think that you specifically told them not to trust me either. I think they saw that you didn't trust me and they didn't really know the reasoning behind that distrust. They know you better than they know me, so why wouldn't they take your side without asking any questions? They decided for themselves, however indirectly your feelings about me may have influenced them. You're not their puppeteer."

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "What the hell makes you think that you're getting what was coming to you? You don't deserve all this misery"

He could certainly agree with that. "Damn right I don't deserve that! So why are you doing this?"

She threw her hands up, as though in defeat. "Because I _love_ you and I don't _deserve_ you!"

Her words hit him with the force of a physical blow. He could only stand there and look at her. Ever the articulate one, Logan blinked a few times before saying, "Eh?"

She looked away from him again, wrapping her arms around her stomach protectively. "For all that I've done to you, I don't deserve you. But you want me anyway! I can't understand it! I don't know how else to push you away! At this point it seems like _nothing_ will work. Goddess, no matter what I do we're still gravitating towards each other like it was written in prophecy – "

That wasn't the part that he'd wanted her to repeat, but he suspected that she knew that. Still, he was sure that he'd heard correctly. He closed the distance between them and pressed his lips softly to hers. He'd never once kissed her so gently. They were both immensely passionate people. Even in the mornings when they'd awakened in each other's arms their kisses had been fiercer than this. Sometimes they were slow, maybe lazy, but never quite this tender and achingly intimate.

They tore at each other's hair, left scratches, bruised each other, bit each other, ripped their clothes to shreds, pushed into each other so hard that knocking down walls and doors was a very real possibility. He'd punched holes in her bed with his claws and she'd cracked the windows in his room with the force of her winds or electricity. Though they'd never truly hurt one another, their passion sometimes bordered on violence.

Yet this soft touch made his knees quake like nothing else could, and he felt tremors running down her spine that suggested that the kiss was doing the very same to her. He'd gone two months without her touch, and it had felt more like two years. Or twenty. Or two hundred. _Too long!_

She pulled away, tears finally falling and shaking her head as she backed further away from him and into the safety of her room. "No," she whispered. "It's not… You shouldn't be… _damn it!_"

Logan caught her easily before she could slam the door in his face. He pulled her closer, not wanting to risk crossing over the threshold for fear that he wouldn't leave. "How many times have I told you that you can't push me away?"

"Why _not? !_ You don't deserve – "

Logan nodded impatiently. "You know so much about what I don't deserve; what _do_ I deserve?"

"Everything you've earned! You deserve to be happy!"

"You make me happy," he said simply. She opened her mouth to argue but he spoke right over her. "Obviously not like _this_. How we were; this past year that we were happy and blissfully unaware of anything but each other. We were only dancing on the surface of what we could have, but that doesn't mean that what we felt was any less real. That's why you can't push me away. I've experienced how happy you can make me, and I've seen how happy I can make you. Both of us deserve that. No one ever deserves to suffer just for the sake of suffering. I did that for fifteen years, and I never realized that I was doing it until I met you."

"It's not suffering for nothing," she said forcefully, trying to get out of his arms. "I don't – "

"Deserve me. So you've said. That argument is getting old. _Why_ do you have it in your mind that you don't deserve me? From what it sounds like, you decided that you didn't deserve me before you did any of this intricate work to seal my hatred of you."

"You were right about T'Challa. I was letting him dictate who I am even after so many years."

"Okay. I was right. You were wrong."

She glared at him. "Nothing is that simple."

"Not everything has to be that complicated, either," he countered. "That's what you don't understand. There isn't always a double meaning in what a person says and does. That's why you feel like you can't trust me." She'd calmed some and had stopped struggling, hanging on his every word. Her resolve seemed to be crumbling and that gave Logan the courage to keep talking. "We have to make a choice, right now, _together_. We can forgive each other, for every intentional and unintentional slight that we've ever done the other. Not _forget_, but forgive. Start over, with the knowledge that we're two different people who see the world differently. We don't understand each other completely, and for that reason neither of us can assume that we know what the other is thinking. We have to learn how to talk to each other because, quite frankly, our communication skills are God-awful.

"We can do that, or we can part ways right here. I'll always know that you're depressed and alone in your own personal hell, and you'll always know that I'm missing a piece of my soul. We can be two separate, miserable people living two separate, miserable lives - agonizingly close enough to touch, yet hopelessly out of reach."

Her eyes darted around her, never quite looking at him. She did that for a long stretch of time before Logan gently tilted her hear up so she'd look at him. "Aren't you tired of being lonely?" Logan sure as hell was, and the tell-tale clenching of her jaw meant that the answer was yesfor her too.

"You shouldn't forgive me so easily," she whispered.

"You're not the only person in the history of the world to screw up," he responded. "Consider it an investment that you'll find it in your heart to forgive me when I do. And I can promise you I will. But I love you. You know I would never do anything as deplorable as what _he_ did."

She looked up at him for a long moment, studying his features with fierce concentration. Finally, she let out a breath. "Now we've both said it," she muttered.

He didn't have to ask what she meant. That illusive 'L' word had finally been said by both of them. Never for a second had he doubted that she loved him. In the very back of his mind, he'd always known. But it was still quite different to hear her say it.

And judging by the way she was looking up at him, she felt the same. He caressed her cheek lightly, hypnotized by her cold flesh. He _knew_ it hadn't always been this cold when he was with her. Was it a reflection of how cold and lonely her heart was? Logan leaned down slowly, stopping when his lips were inches from hers. She waited with a confused look, and Logan smirked. He knew he could warm her heart and maybe even her soul, but he couldn't do it alone. "I'm done doing all the work," he said softly. "Meet me halfway."

She smiled – a dazzling, genuine smile that lit up his world – and leaned up to kiss him. He responded immediately, pouring his entire worth into her. His violent emotions stayed in the background: his anger at Victor for bringing about the temper tantrum or T'Challa for breaking her heart or Magneto for making him hurt her or his own self loathing at thinking that he wasn't good enough for her. Instead, he tried to give her his strength and the knowledge that no one would _ever_ love her as much as he did. She _had_ to know that she had the strength to stop making herself the victim and to rise above her self inflicted misery.

His lungs were paralyzed by the intensity of the emotions inside him. She clung to him lightly, yet there was an underlying desperation that she was afraid she might be dreaming. He hoped that she could somehow feel what he felt; that they were – and perhaps had always been – two separate bodies, two separate people, with one soul between them.

They'd found each other for a reason, they worked well together for a reason. He believed that he could save Ororo from her past. He believed that as much as he believed that she could give him a future worth looking forward to. Not one that was necessarily easy, but one that he would treasure nonetheless. And he _could_ have forever with her, so long as they worked for it. _Together._

Her lips, colder than ice but softer than flower petals, began moving against his in fevered desperation. His body responded before his mind had the chance to register the fact that he was wrapping his arms around her and pressing her into the doorframe. She moaned his first name loudly into his mouth and he swallowed it as though it were necessary for his survival. Something inside him always snapped when she called him James. _God_, this woman could make him lose his damn mind!

He no longer cared where they were. The bed was too far, pushing her into the room and kicking the door closed would take too much time and effort… Logan ground his hips into hers and she reached up to tug at his hair in encouragement. But when he reached down to impatiently pull her shirt off, she pulled away from him.

It took him a moment to register what had happened, and he nearly cried out in protest. His _soul_ ached at the loss of contact. But, with self restraint he hadn't known he possessed, he refrained from pulling her back to him. She looked up at him and gave him a nod of finality. "I've now lost two of my closest friends and the only father I've ever really known," she said quietly. "I don't want to lose you too. I… _can't_."

Logan trembled from the effort of resisting leaning forward to kiss her again. Anything to reassure her. But touching her again would likely mean that he wouldn't leave. "I _promise_ you won't lose me," he told her, looking straight into her eyes.

"I…" She bit her lip nervously, closed her eyes, breathed deeply, opened them again. "I love you."

He smiled, mostly because of what she'd said, but also because she was using her bedroom door as a barrier between them. She too seemed to realize that he wouldn't be going anywhere for a long time if he touched her again.

He knew he was playing with fire, but he couldn't resist reaching out and at least stroking her cheek lightly. His smile got a bit wider when he realized that her skin was just a little bit warmer. "I love you too," he said, his heart leaping at the contented sigh that she let out. She knew, and she believed him. He could go find Jean and rest assured that Ororo now knew that he would _always_ come back to her.


	88. Infiltrating The Brotherhood

I tried to write fast enough to put it up yesterday, but 3 PM turned into 5 PM, which turned into 8 PM... You get the idea. I was dog tired and my roommates were screaming like banshees so I figured I'd try to get some sleep. ANYWAY, here's another chapter! Thank you for the help, Wilson!

* * *

Logan met no resistance on his way down to the garage but, upon actually arriving there, he saw Betsy carelessly draped over Scott's motorcycle – which Emma had brought back from Alkali Lake days ago – with a bored expression. "About damn time," she muttered when she seemed to sense him.

Logan halted. He'd _wanted_ to explain himself to Ororo. He'd _needed_ to tell her that she had nothing to worry about as far as who he loved. It had been important to him that she didn't think he was leaving her, because there really was no telling what scenario she might've cooked up in her mind if he'd left without explanation.

But Betsy… he didn't owe her a _damn_ thing.

She chuckled as she lazily turned her head in Logan's direction. "I'm not here to stop you from doing what you need to do," she said as she got off the bike and took a few steps back. "Gambit was so hell bent on taking this motorcycle with him that I had to sit on it to get him to leave in something else. You ought to be thanking me for saving you your favorite mode of transportation."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "How… uncharacteristically thoughtful," he said finally. "I must be growing on you."

Her expression had already been quite flat, but somehow it managed to get flatter. "Not likely," she answered. "The fact that you like this motorcycle is incidental. You'll get where you need to go fastest with this. They'll be fine in the vehicles they took."

_They?_ Logan glanced around and immediately noticed that Ororo's Dodge Charger and Bobby's old Jeep Wrangler were both missing. Logan frowned. Why the hell were both Bobby and Remy gone? "Where the hell did they go?"

"To find Rogue," she said with a shrug. "They'll both be needed where they're going, so I didn't bother stopping them. I'm not stopping you for that same reason." Logan gave her a confused look. "I've got some precognitive abilities," she told him.

Precognition… That meant she could see the future, right? Could she see how all of this was going to pan out in the end?

"Not really," she answered. "I used to have better focus, but after the switch…" She stiffened, closing her eyes for a moment. She absently rubbed at the red tattoo over her left eye, as though it caused her discomfort. "Every now and then I get glimpses of what could happen and what will happen," she explained, opening her eyes again. "I can't focus it to specific events and sometimes it's hard to tell which event is which. The outcome is always based on the decisions of the people involved. Because Bobby chose to leave, he's going to end up saving many burn victims from a Cure Clinic. Gambit is going to save Rogue after she's attacked by mutant terrorists."

Logan stiffened at that, but Betsy repeated that last statement more forcefully in his mind. There wasn't any doubt in Betsy's mind that Gambit was going to save her; she knew it with absolute certainty. That certainty calmed Logan just enough to keep him from running out to try to find Marie himself. "And me?" he asked finally.

She shrugged. "You're going to be needed where you're going."

"How?" he pushed.

"I can't tell you that," she said firmly. "I don't share the details of one's future with them. It may effect their decisions and create another outcome that I didn't foresee."

Logan nodded absently. If she told him what he was supposed to do, his knowledge of it might make the future she'd told him of nonexistent. If that happened, then there had been no point in revealing the future in the first place. At least, that seemed to be what she was telling him. She didn't refute it, so he assumed he was right.

He got onto Scott's bike and was going to start it, but paused when it seemed that Betsy wasn't done. "Something else?"

Her amethyst eyes and tone were suddenly hard. "Don't deceive yourself into thinking that 'a little more time' will bring her back."

He glared at her, but the look slowly slipped away when he realized that he couldn't come up with a response to that. He'd caught the unspoken meaning well enough: _kill her if you have to._ But she wasn't telling him flat out to kill Jean. She was just telling him to prepare himself for the possibility that he might have to. No one else was strong enough to do it, and he doubted that Jean trusted anyone to get close enough to her to do it. It had to be Logan.

_Well,_ he suddenly thought, _Ororo could._ She was an omega mutant, and was therefore equal in strength to Jean. She'd also been like a sister to her, so it was highly likely that she could get close enough to Jean to kill her.

But did Ororo deserve to have that burden placed on her shoulders?

_Absolutely not._

Logan dreaded the thought that he might have to take the life of a friend in order to save the lives of countless unknowns, but he wouldn't wish that burden on anyone else. Betsy's expression softened – or her approximation of it. "I don't envy you," she said quietly. "But… I think that Xavier's faith in you was well placed." She looked anywhere but at him, almost awkwardly. Logan avoided her eyes as well, knowing that this sort of thing made a woman like her uncomfortable.

He gave her a nod as he turned on the engine. She returned it and with that Logan tore out of the garage and got on the road. He noticed that the sky was a bit gray, but he immediately put that out of his mind. Ororo was likely worried about him, nothing more.

Logan knew – from Jean's mind – that Magneto's base camp was in a heavily wooded area in northern New York, almost Canada. He was sure that it wouldn't take him more than five or six hours to get there, even less if he neglected the speed limit (which he would). But once he got to the general area it was going to take hours to scout out the place until he was sure that he could get close enough to Jean without being detected.

And once he got to her… Well, if she really wanted to come with him then they could waltz right out.

If not…

He put those thoughts aside as he pulled into a gas station. Logan slid his credit card – the one that Ororo and Xavier had insisted on giving him in case of emergencies – into the slot and began pumping his gas. He ignored the small TV that always played, but the words "Breaking News" caught his attention and he looked up with a feeling of dread that was becoming familiar.

"A statement from a dangerous and wanted mutant has just been issued," the man was saying. "The mutant terrorist known as Magneto was sent to prison well over a year ago, but escaped after only a few months of incarceration and has been on the run ever since. Authorities have been on the case around the clock, and still are trying to pinpoint his location. It is believed that he has many followers, as mutant terrorist attacks have increased exponentially in only a matter of days. Magneto implies that today's bombing of a Cure Clinic was only the first attack made directly from the Brotherhood of Mutants, but authorities believe that he is also behind the riots and bombings in other cities and even around the country. He had this to say."

The man nodded to someone behind the camera and the image switched to none other than the Master of Magnetism. His face was filled with quiet malice as he addressed the camera with the formal gravity of the president from the Oval Office. The setup actually didn't look that different, though it was clear to Logan that he was somewhere underground. He worried for a moment that he wouldn't be able to find Magneto if he was underground, but reasoned that the camp Jean had shown him was above ground. She'd shown him that for a reason; he was going to her, not Magneto. If he was underground it didn't matter to Logan in the slightest.

"Today's attack was only our first salvo," he declared in a voice that seemed to radiate power even though the small television set. "So long as this 'cure' exists, our war will rage! Your cities will not be safe! Your streets will not be safe! _You_ will not be safe!" Magneto's features softened, but not by a lot. "And to my fellow mutants, I make you this offer and warning: join us or stay out of our way! Enough mutant blood has been spilled already!"

"Guess human casualties don't count for shit," Logan muttered with a scowl as the newscaster returned and began giving more details that he didn't give a damn about. He knew that Magneto had gotten so bold only because he thought he had Jean at his disposal. He could only pray that she – Phoenix, if she was the one in control – will rebel against him as fiercely as she'd rebelled against Xavier. Phoenix may have chosen to go with him, but she had to know that Magneto was using her. Perhaps she didn't care? Or perhaps she was tagging along because it was something to do? Logan hoped that was the case, and hoped that she could be persuaded to ditch Magneto and come with him back to the mansion. If that happened, they could at least stall this war that Magneto was so hell bent on.

Logan got back on the road and put himself in a state of autopilot as he rode so that he could follow his senses. His mind knew where to take him, so he trusted in that. He lost track of time on the long stretch of road until he felt a tug that told him that he was close. He pulled off the road and drove right into the dense bushes to hide the bike from sight. He'd have to travel the rest of the way on foot, and he knew that in the thousands of acres of forest, finding the campsite was going to be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Jean may have shown him the way, but he was too innately wary to follow her trail directly. He was sure that Magneto had mutant guards posted everywhere, and after a few hours of scoping out the entire perimeter from a safe distance, he found that to be true. It took a minute, but Logan finally decided to choose a backdoor that was a rugged traverse, but nowhere near impossible.

He sniffed around as he went. Everything was deadly calm, and Logan's claws glided out silently as he caught a few faint scents. He was just one mutant, and he was about to go against several other mutants with various abilities that he might not be able to match. But he'd have to trust his senses and tradecraft – along with his claws – to see him to the finish. He'd sustain himself on whatever he found along the way and face the elements as he had for years.

He targeted the scent and instead of a mutant, he found a trap with a residual scent left behind. He slowly sheathed his claws and kept his eyes open for any more nasty snares and deadfalls as he continued. Some were in obvious places and easily avoided, but a few were sited so ingeniously that Logan almost wanted to meet the mutant responsible.

Still, he fell prey to none of them as he continued. Speed was of the essence, but as he closed in on his objective – he could feel Jean's presence in the very air he breathed – he knew that it was far better to be silent. A ghost couldn't have been less conspicuous than Logan as he slipped from shadow to shadow without making a sound or leaving a sign. There wasn't even a _shush_ of clothes as he moved, nor a touch of boot soles to leaves on the forest floor.

But as he got closer, Jean's presence got stronger and he felt her excitement. He also knew that Phoenix was still at the wheel, not Jean. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he just _knew_ that Phoenix was the one that had called to him and was waiting for him. That realization made him pause for a moment to think about that.

Phoenix didn't want to be 'saved' or 'fixed'. She'd told him that herself. So why had she called him with that plea? The first answer that came to mind was that Jean must've done it. But Phoenix was too powerful and refused to let Jean take control again. Right? So had Phoenix perhaps _let_ Jean make the call? Why the hell would she do that?

The whole thing had him extremely confused. Logan knew that he had to be close, because he felt Phoenix's presence swimming playfully around in his mind and she nudged away his confusion until it was gone completely. She was excited that he was getting nearer. So excited, in fact, that it began to hinder his senses when he continued through the woods. He tried to mentally push away, even tried to put up a barrier to keep her out. His efforts only seemed to amuse her. Annoyed, Logan tried to ignore her as he pushed on at a snail's pace. He hoped that slowing down would make up for his dulled senses, but that didn't seem to be the case.

Thankfully, however, even his dulled senses were better than that of the average human or mutant. He stopped, his nose flaring when a foreign scent hit it. He wasn't sure how he might've described the scent, but he was sure that it was mutant so he didn't bother dwelling on it. Again, he slowly slid his claws out of his knuckles so that it hardly made a sound. Someone was nearby, but the scent blended in well with the mixed scents around him. That, coupled with his dulled senses, made it harder to pinpoint the mutant than it normally would have been…

His shoulder jerked back and he felt an intense heat spread out across his shoulder and move into his arm and chest. He looked down and saw that something that looked like a stinger was sticking out of his shoulder. He heard the next one before he saw it, and ducked out of the way just as it flew past his eyes. _Shit!_ He retreated, hoping that he'd be fast enough to lose the mutant in the dense forest.

Logan thought rapidly as he ducked and weaved as fast as he could to avoid more of the stingers that were flying at him. Perhaps if he ran far enough, the mutant would get lost trying to follow after Logan instead of raising the alarm like he ought to. But if Magneto had any telepaths other than Phoenix, they would likely be connected to the minds of every sentry on duty and would shriek the alarm at the first sign of trouble. Yet even as he allowed himself that thought, with it came the certainty that Magneto had no other telepaths among his new Brotherhood. Phoenix, he knew; helping again. He took that as a good sign, only because he honestly wasn't sure what else to take it as.

Logan hid behind a tree and slowed his breathing as he listened for any sign of the other mutant. Suddenly remembering the stinger that was still embedded in his shoulder, he pulled it out roughly and hissed in pain. His adrenaline healed his shoulder a little faster than usual but he was listening so hard that he hardly noticed the pain after that. In an instant Logan knew the exact location of the mutant that was following him. He wasn't sure if Phoenix had lifted her fog of excitement (and now humor) for him or if she had told him where the mutant was…

He didn't dwell on the details. He bent around the tree and hurtled the stinger back at the mutant with deadly accuracy. He didn't bother looking to see if it had hit the target; the pained grunt he heard was good enough confirmation.

Truthfully, they hadn't made a lot of noise, but it had apparently been enough to bring others to the general area. They came in fast from all sides, trapping Logan at their convergence.

They arrived to find nothing but disturbed ground.

They should have looked up.

Phoenix cackled delightedly inside Logan's mind. Logan suppressed a bubble of laughter as well, but was a little annoyed at Phoenix for making him find the humor in the situation. To her credit, it was pretty uncanny how well, how quickly, how quietly, a guy could claw his way up the side of a tree when there was need. Still, he really didn't think it was _that_ funny. _You must be pretty damn bored out here if this is how you get your kicks,_ he thought at her.

The sentries below him looked around, examining the area in thorough confusion. Logan waited with the patience of a born hunter. He wanted to take down two at once. If one moved just a little to the left…

Logan kicked away from the tree and did a back flip on his way down, cutting down two of the sentries as he landed. He made sure that the cuts were shallow enough not to cause the mutants to bleed out, but they were deep enough to keep them preoccupied for a while. He wasn't in a rage and was certainly in no mood to kill. He only wanted to stun them. Another guard came and was cut down in the same manner.

Apparently the noise from this was enough to bring even more sentries. He worried for an instant that the entire camp would be informed of his presence but Phoenix, once again, assured him that the sentries on the other side of the camp were aware of nothing. She'd seen to that by 'pausing' them during the commotion.

For another instant, Logan internally grumbled at the fact that Phoenix had chosen not to 'pause' the mutants that were all coming at him now. She laughed again inside his mind, letting him know that she couldn't let him off too easy. He'd have to work to get to her. He found himself suddenly wary of the reason that she'd called him there, but she made no comment on that.

Pushing it out of his mind, Logan laid out the other mutants that came at him with ease, killing none of them. He didn't have much time to be proud of himself as he had to lean back to avoid getting hit by another goddamn stinger. He held up his claws to block the next one that came at him, and the mutant charged him as he threw dozens more. Logan cut them out of his way as he charged the mutant as well.

They cleared the distance between them in seconds, and both roared as they jumped into the air and collided. Figuring that the mutant had some healing ability – as evidenced by the stingers coming out of his wrists, Logan knew that he'd have to knock out this mutant more roughly than he had the others. Logan embedded his claws in the mutant's chest and they went to the ground with a loud thud. He landed on top of the mutant, but struggled furiously not to howl in pain.

Two stingers had been stabbed into his abdomen, piercing a kidney and his liver, if he wasn't mistaken. He writhed in silent agony for a few seconds before slowly and painfully forcing himself to his feet and looking down at the stingers. He didn't like the pain that he knew would follow after he pulled them out, but liked the idea of the stingers containing poison even less. While poison wouldn't kill him, it had the potential to make him violently ill for weeks.

If they did happen to contain poison, the sooner he pulled them out, the better. He grit is teeth, locked every muscle he possessed and painfully pulled the stingers out, biting back another scream. He breathed deeply, waiting for his healing factor to kick in. But what he heard next made him doubt that he had that much time. "Members of the Brotherhood," Magneto thundered.

Enthusiastic cheers followed and Logan swallowed a curse, sprinting the remaining distance to the camp. Blessedly, there were a few jackets hanging around on erected tents and Logan casually snatched one as he passed. He shrugged it on as if he owned it – putting up the hood to avoid being recognized – and milled around for a moment.

Magneto had sure as hell been busy. He must've made one hell of a case, too. Logan had expected a few score, max, to rally to Magneto's cause. But what lay before him easily numbered in the hundreds; both sexes, all ages, individuals and groups and even families – not merely the ones who could fight, but the future generations they were fighting _for_.

The majority of the mutants present were gathered at the bottom of a hilltop. At the top of the hill stood Magneto, who was patiently surveying the area as more gathered closer still. With him stood a few mutants that Logan recognized and a few that he didn't, but it was clear that they were all at the top of the line in the Brotherhood. Juggernaut stood a ways back from Magneto, picking at his nails. The tatted mutant that Ororo had fought at Phoenix's house stood back as well, but made sure that she was seen. She looked out at the gathered mutants with a superior expression and so, too, did John. He was standing right beside her with his arms folded across his chest and a sneer on his face as he looked down on the other mutants, seemingly seeing them as nothing more than pawns. That statement about being a god among insects had clearly gone to his head.

Logan's heart clenched on Ororo and Lee's behalf. He hoped that they wouldn't have to see him like this, because it would break both their hearts. Lee's heart was already broken; this was sure to shatter it, possibly beyond repair. And Ororo would likely find a way to blame herself for what he had become. He didn't want that for either of them. They didn't deserve that guilt. Magneto may have been a bad influence on John, but he'd been old enough and smart enough to make his choices by himself. If he'd chosen wrong, that was entirely his fault.

And the last mutant that Logan recognized was of course Phoenix, her long red hair billowing around her in the soft breeze and a lazy expression on her face. Her eyes snapped to Logan's and the corner of her mouth kicked up in a brief smirk. "_Peek-a-boo_," she whispered inside his mind.

Logan shivered at her tone and she laughed inside his mind again. He brushed up against someone's arm and it was only then that Logan noticed that he'd been moving closer to Phoenix in the time that his eyes had been locked with hers. He was now in the thick of the crowd, and Magneto had apparently decided that he could start his speech.

"My brothers, they wish to _cure_ us," he sneered, nodding when jeers accompanied that statement. "But I say to you; we _are_ the cure! The cure for their infirm, imperfect condition called _homo sapiens_." He spat in disgust. More cheers filled the air.

"They have their weapons" – he nodded and turned to Phoenix, standing apart from the group that was assembled so closely to Magneto – "and we have ours."

Phoenix slowly looked at him and rolled her eyes boredly. Logan hoped that Magneto, like Fidel Castro, would go on for hours. That would make his life _so_ much easier.

"We will strike with a vengeance and a fury that this world has never witnessed! And if any mutants stand in our way we will use this poison _against_ them!"

Logan had been mostly focused on Phoenix, but at that he paused a moment and took a long hard look at his hands. It flashed in his vision only briefly – once again, courtesy of Phoenix – but the image that she gave was enough for Logan. As if his skin had turned transparent, he could see his claws in their housings, tucked into his forearms. He could also see how intricately the molecular structure of his bones had been interwoven with that of the adamantium that made them unbreakable.

The process had cost him a significant portion of his bone marrow, so the key element that sustained him was his healing factor. Not only did it heal the gashes made between his knuckles every time the blades extended and retracted, it also produced red and white blood cells with incredible efficiency. Take that away, and he was sure to die. It wasn't a happy thought at all, and a fate that he was determined to avoid.

"We will end this where it began." That caught Logan's attention. "We shall go to Alcatraz Island, take control of the cure, and destroy its source!"

_And suppose you win, smart guy_, Logan thought. _What then? What about the people left? You just find a way to make them 'disappear'? Beat Hitler's score by a hundred or more? Can even __**you**__ embrace genocide?_

Logan glanced back at Phoenix and saw that she was wearing a humorless expression. _"Does he exile everyone to Australia?"_ Phoenix asked. _"Turn them into the perpetual underclass? Is the future he promises them – us – to become lords of an earth populated by slaves?"_

Logan frowned at her. He knew that Jean would be horrified and the mere thought of such questions. But Phoenix… why was she bothering? What did she care if Magneto's plan succeeded or failed?

Taking a good long look at her face, it was clear that she _didn't_ care. Not really. There was no emotion whatsoever in her tone, mind, or expression. She was voicing thoughts and concerns that _he_ thought were relevant. But why would she do that for him?

"_Because you want to know," _she said in a calm voice. _"Haven't you ever wondered why you always end up finding parallels between Erik and Hitler?"_

Phoenix showed Logan an image of an adolescent boy, shaking violently from the cold and huddled in the arms of a woman that wasn't his mother. They were crammed into the corner of a cattle car in the thick of a Polish blizzard, on their way from one camp of misery to another.

"_He was made to work in a concentration camp in his youth," _she explained matter-of-factly,_ "ordered to search the bodies of fellow Jews for jewelry, ordered to put them in the furnace and burn their bodies, whether they were dead or still alive. And when the bodies had been burned, He was ordered to sift through ash and bone again in case he'd missed anything. When you're young and impressionable and made to grow up in such a setting – no matter how long or short a time you must endure it – how can you retaliate any differently? He's been hardwired to think like them. It's all he knows."_

Logan's jaw fell open a little. Not just at her words, not just at the horrifying images that accompanied her words, but at the fact that those thoughts had never occurred to him.

She was absolutely right. There were similarities between what Hitler had done to Jews and what Magneto was trying to do to humans that couldn't be ignored. Logan had wondered why someone who had suffered so greatly would want to put that same suffering on others, and in an instant Phoenix had provided the answer: he knew nothing else. He was determined not to let his people – mutants – suffer as others of his faith had. And how else could he ensure that his race wouldn't be eradicated? Wipe out the enemy.

He was turning to what he _knew_ would work, because he'd seen firsthand that it could. It didn't make as much sense when Logan tried to puzzle the concept out, but perhaps that was because Jean's meaning had been so simply put: like the humans that he despised so much, Magneto didn't know any better.

"_He has no vision whatsoever,"_ Phoenix continued. _"He's spent so long __**wanting **__that he'll have no idea what to do with himself when he finally gets what he wants. He __**thinks **__he knows, but he has __**no **__idea. He's held back by the ghosts of his past and the need to measure every action and decision against a rival and former friend. He can't seem to accept the rightness of his cause until he's proved Charles wrong."_ Her eyes darkened and her mouth split into a fearsome grin. _"I don't have that problem."_

Logan shivered. _What are you going to do,_ he asked cautiously.

A thick branch at her feet lifted into the air and hovered a few feet in front of her. She blinked, her eyes widening until she looked like a curious kitten that had discovered a new toy. The wood began to glow as Phoenix used her telekinesis to excite the molecules. She radiated her thoughts to Logan as she played with the core molecular structure of the wood. She altered its density, its shape, its state, its very physical nature until the wooden branch became a steel rod.

She blinked again and a clump of dirt lifted off the ground as well. Her mouth widened into a smile of delight as she focused her attention on it, exciting the molecules into hydrogen and fusing oxygen molecules into it until it was a floating clump of water. She turned her attention back to the steel rod and altered it from steel back to wood and infused a spark of life into it before planting it in the fertile soil at her feet. She let the water fall into a puddle at her feet on top of the wood she'd just planted and after a moment of staring down at her feet, a bright green stem with a single leaf popped out of the ground.

With only her mind, she'd created life.

The mutants around him gasped, but Phoenix had eyes only for Logan as she looked back up. "_I'm going to do anything I want,"_ she whispered in an excited voice. _**"Anything!"**_

Magneto nodded approvingly at Phoenix. "And then," he roared as he gestured to her, "_**nothing**__ can stop us!_"

The cheers were deafening and Phoenix gave him a pitying look. _"Silly, foolish man. You say that as if it's a __**good**__ thing."_ Magneto suddenly looked a little uncomfortable and he glanced in Phoenix's direction. Logan assumed that she'd let Magneto hear that comment as well, and wondered if he had any idea that Phoenix was using him as much as he was using her

For once, Phoenix didn't answer his unspoken inquiry. She shrugged indifferently at Magneto and walked away now that his speech seemed to be over. Logan weaved in and out of the other cheering mutants as casually as he could and walked into the woods at an even pace, following the scent of cinnamon with an almost imperceptible hint of ginger. She obviously wanted to talk to him. Logan hoped that she would listen.


	89. Turbulence

I **TRIED** to post this earlier today, but editing took a lot longer than I expected. Hopefully the changes were for the better...

Once again, thank you Watson!

Enjoy everyone!

* * *

Logan slipped away from the crowd and into the dense forest with minimal fuss, and as soon as he was sure he was out of sight he began following Phoenix's scent. It wasn't an impossible task – she reeked of raw power and the cinnamon scent she naturally radiated – but it was a bit difficult because it was so thick in the air that he couldn't pinpoint her exact location.

Thick as it was, he didn't miss the faint scent of ginger in the air as well, and he decided to take that as a good sign. Maybe Jean wasn't completely buried, no matter how her words from a few moments ago had suggested otherwise.

He looked around, calling out to her mentally. Where the hell had she disappeared off to? Hadn't she wanted him to come all this way to talk to her? He stopped moving and looked around him carefully. Should he wait for Phoenix to come to him? He caught a flash of red to his left and called out to her. She stopped, turned to him, frowned in confusion as though wondering why he was there. The scent of ginger got a little stronger. Logan froze, hoping not to startle her. "Jean?"

In an instant he was hurtled back into a tree and pinned against it so tightly that he couldn't even wiggle. He thought, for that first moment, that he'd been attacked by Phoenix. But the strong scent of copper soon filled the air and out stepped Magneto with an amused expression. "Here we go again," he said in a condescending voice. "I know the smell of your adamantium from a mile away."

"I didn't come here to fight you," Logan ground out, looking around for the woman he'd come for.

Magneto nodded his approval. "Smart boy."

"I came for Jean."

"I'm _Phoenix_," she said forcefully. Logan had to look out of the corner of his eye to watch her approach, but it was clear that the hesitation and confusion from only moments ago had vanished. So had any traces of ginger that Logan thought he might've scented. _Just fucking perfect!_

"You think I'm keeping her against her will?" Magneto asked, looking perfectly at ease with Phoenix by his side. Logan didn't answer, and the fist Magneto was holding out flattened into a palm. Logan moved slowly through the air, closer and closer. He stopped only a few feet from them, hovering a good two feet above the ground. Magneto glanced at Phoenix and shrugged. "Take a look at her. She's here because she _wants_ to be."

"You don't know what you're dealing with."

Phoenix raised a skeptical eyebrow at him, and Magneto voiced what she was so obviously thinking. "Oh, but you do?" Logan growled and Magneto's features darkened as he nodded. "I didn't think so. I know full well what Phoenix can do. I saw what she did to Charles."

"And you just stood there and let him die," Logan spat. Magneto's features twisted into a fearsome rage, but he said nothing. Phoenix looked at him for a long moment. Logan knew that she was reading his mind, but whatever he was thinking wasn't overflowing into his mind. He didn't know if that was good or bad. Clearly Magneto felt partially responsible for Xavier's death.

As he ought to. He'd been the one to coax Phoenix into a temper tantrum when Xavier might've been able to talk her down. Hell, if that hadn't worked then Logan would've stepped in to try talking to her. If she'd wanted to stay in that house rather than come back to the mansion then that would've been her choice. If it had come down to Logan dragging Xavier and Magneto out of the house kicking and screaming then he would've done it.

Phoenix turned to Logan with a curious expression. _"You would've done that for me?"_

_You __**know**__ I would've, _he answered impatiently. "You light that fire," he said, addressing Magneto, "what makes you think you can put it out?"

Her expression changed just that quick and she smirked as she turned to the old man. "He _can't_," she said smugly.

Magneto didn't seem to take that as an insult. Did the fool _want_ her to unleash her terrible might on the world? "Perhaps I'm like Prometheus, bringing that sacred fire to the masses?"

_I bet you like the sound of that_, Logan thought snidely, hoping that Phoenix had let him hear that. "I'm thinking more like Icarus," he said as he glared at the other man. "I don't give a rat's ass how far you fall, Magneto, but I'll be damned if I see her fall with you."

Phoenix took a step forward, her eyes wide as they focused on Logan. She no longer looked smug or calculating or dispassionate. She looked like she wanted to tell him something important. "And why is that?" she asked patiently, as though she had the answer but wanted him to figure it out.

Magneto snorted. "Isn't it obvious that he lo – "

Phoenix vaguely gestured in Magneto's direction and the old man found himself pinned to a tree across from Logan in a similar fashion. His eyes were wide and seemed to be radiating panic, but Phoenix took no notice. "Quiet, you," she said, never taking her eyes off of Logan.

"Jean! Put me down," he demanded.

Her eyes darkened, but every muscle in her lean body relaxed. For some reason, that sent a shiver of fear like no other up Logan's spine. She didn't need her body, and she obviously knew it. Her mind, however, was sharp as ever.

"You may command your little pawns however you like, but you do not command me," Phoenix said in a flat tone. "I'm not your eager little lap dog like Pyro."

"Don't call me a lap dog." Logan turned and saw John coming towards them, his hard eyes locked on Phoenix. Logan's heart dropped. In the short time that Logan had known him, the Australian never censored his mouth. Or if he did, his thoughts were sure to be much worse. "You're one to talk about other people, what with you being bipolar, schizophrenic, and all around disturbed."

Logan squeezed his eyes shut. Was the boy an absolute imbecile? He had tried watching his mouth around Phoenix and she had dealt him quite a bit of pain already. Apparently John hadn't gotten to know her so well, and Logan honestly feared that she might kill him.

"For all the trouble that mouth of yours has brought you," Phoenix said slowly, turning to John, "it's never occurred to you to watch what you say, has it? It probably hasn't sunk in that you ought to think before you act, too, has it?"

John froze, staring straight at Phoenix as though in a trance.

_"__You trust h__er?"_ someone whispered. _"__She's one of __**them**_._"_

_"__So were you once__,"_ a voice responded.

_"__I stuck with you all the way,"_ the first voice insisted. _"__I would've killed the professor if you'd given me the chance_._"_

Logan blinked as his vision shifted. It looked like he was still in the campsite, but he was watching John, Magneto, and the woman with all the tattoos. John hadn't necessarily meant what he'd said. Phoenix knew that. He was a lot of talk, and if he'd actually been ordered to kill Xavier he would've found that he was unable to do it.

Obviously, Magneto didn't care if John was full of shit. He rounded on the teen with barely suppressed rage that sent a shiver of fear down John's spine and made him take a reflexive step back. _"__The professor,"_ he roared, right in John's face, _"__was __**my friend! !**__"_ He paused, for breath and for control. He could already feel his powers seizing control of every small scrap of metal on the boy and counting the ways that he could teach the brat a lesson. But instead he opened his mouth. _"__Charles Xavier did more for mutants than you'll ever know. My single greatest regret was that he had to die for our dream to live_._"_

Logan's vision shifted again. This time he saw a group of six boys kicking at someone who was lying on the ground in an alley in Sydney when John was thirteen. _"__Yeah?_" one of the boys shouted. _"__You're tough shit now, aren't you, freak? What are you going to do now that your friends aren't around to protect your sorry little ass when you talk all that smack, huh?"_

John's only response was to spit out more blood as a kick to the gut knocked out what precious air he'd managed to get in his lungs. With shaky hands, he reached into his pocket for his lighter. He managed to pull it out but dropped it when someone slammed their knee into his ribs.

_"__What's this?"_ someone asked, picking it up. _"Gift from some whore that's unfortunate enough to be your mother?"_ He struck the flint and the wick ignited.

So did the entire alley.

The tiny flame detonated like a bomb, flames punching out every door and window along the alley and making sizable holes in the brick walls surrounding them. A shockwave of blistering heat tipped over nearby cars and even knocked out windows across the street.

John cowered on the ground, shivering and refusing to let out sobs of terror, even if he couldn't stop the tears. He'd meant to do it, but he honestly hadn't thought that he was powerful enough. Next to him lay the proof that he was. He didn't know who's body it was; the fire had scorched the skin and muscle completely off of the face and had even melted the bone. He glanced around and saw that the body next to him wasn't the worst. The smell of charred flesh and burning blood and _death_ invaded his lungs, choking him. He cried harder and, as a result, had to breathe it in more. He had to get out of there. He needed a hospital.

But he knew that he'd draw unneeded attention to himself once they discovered that his average temperature was one hundred and twelve degrees. He couldn't handle all the testing. Not again…

Sirens sounded in the distance and John struggled to his feet. He found his mother's lighter and painfully limped away, the sight and stench of burning corpses forever branded in his mind.

_"I wasn't lying when I said that I've killed six people,"_ John had told him once.

Again Logan's vision shifted and he saw a woman that looked very tired. The nose and eyes that John so obviously possessed meant that this woman had to be his mother. She sat on a bed in a hospital room, smoking a cigarette and glaring down at an eight year old John, who was sitting in a chair in the corner. The hand she was smoking with was badly burned and wrapped with fresh gauze. John's doing.

It had been an accident and John was sorry, but she still seemed angry with him. _"It won't happen again,"_ he promised. _"Look."_

He got up and grabbed her favorite lighter and struck it. Concentrating, he pulled the fire away from the wick and held it in his hand harmlessly. He smiled as he rolled it around, but when he looked up at his mother she was frowning at him in disgust. She tapped at the hospital bed compulsively before shaking her head and getting up to leave. John let the flame die and went to follow her, but she shook her head. _"You're staying here. Something is wrong with **you**."_

The scene dissolved and was replaced with the image of John and Lee in the middle of a crowd at what looked to be a concert. John was mouthing off to a guy that looked like an NFL linebacker, and Lee was furiously trying to pull John away. She didn't want him to start a fight and reveal that they were mutants, especially when her powers were so unpredictable.

The large teen he was yelling at _did_ want to start a fight. But he didn't want to participate; he wanted to watch one blow up. He said something rude to Lee, sparking John's temper. He drew back to punch the guy, but before anyone realized what was happening, the other guy grabbed Lee's wrist and jerked her towards him as he stepped aside. Instead of punching the other teen, John punched Lee in the face. Hard enough to send her crumbling to the ground in shock; tears streaming down her face, blood in her mouth, and a mark already forming on her cheek, John didn't miss that split second that Lee looked up at him with a mixture of hurt and fear.

That look still haunted his dreams from time to time.

An ear splitting scream of fury brought Logan back to the present. John's entire body was covered in flames in an instant as he glared at Phoenix with nothing less than murder in his eyes.

John's wrath kicked his powers into overdrive, and for a moment Logan truly glimpsed the world through John's eyes. He knew the temperature of every mutant within a one mile radius, could control the fires bubbling in a volcano thousands of miles away, felt the heat of a mild solar flare on the sun. The infrared vision that he was looking through wasn't only a side effect of rage. Rather, John's world always had been and always would be defined by the heat that it generated.

_"Everything I see,"_ he had once said, _"people included, are just fuel for the fire."_

John's rage was so great that he could hear, _feel, _and_ **taste**_ every flicker of every flame in hell.

The raw passion of it knocked Logan breathless. He tasted that insatiable hunger that made John want to ignite the entire world. He could feel how easy it would be for the boy – so much energy to torch a tree, this much heat to sustain a burning vehicle… Logan hadn't believed him when he'd said it, but the world around him had really no purpose other than fuel for the fire, and the fire was the only companion that John could count on. It lived and breathed just as he did. He gave it life, and in turn its power protected him.

But it was no match for Phoenix.

John's focus was wholly on her. He could feel the heat of every inch of her skin, as well as the temperature of every drop of blood in her body. He tried to heat her entire being, and she allowed it. While it would've killed anyone else instantly, Phoenix hardly blinked.

Frustrated, he called all of the flames surrounding his body to his hands in a rush and superheated the sphere of fire until its heat rivaled the surface of the sun. He threw it at her in a stream of steady flames like a flamethrower, and Phoenix only smiled in response. She let the flames surround her and even revealed in the warmth that seeped into her bones.

But the surrounding trees weren't immune to his flames and caught fire instantly. The fire fanned out, consuming Logan and Magneto as well. But he felt nothing, and neither did Magneto. Phoenix was using her telekinesis to shield them from the heat and flames.

Not that John cared. He had eyes only for Phoenix, and she laughed delightedly at him. "Don't be angry with _me_, Johnny," she taunted in a sickly sweet voice. "It may have been an accident, but you realize that it was still your fault, don't you? Everything that's gone wrong in your life is _your fault._"

John's rage spiked and his eyes flashed a brilliant orange for an instant. The fire he was controlling brightened and expanded, making Phoenix jump as though startled. Logan would've jumped too if mobility had been an option for him, because he'd felt what Phoenix had felt; for a split second, John's flames had penetrated her telekinetic shield and had burned her.

Her eyes darkened and Logan felt her rage consume her. She rooted around in his mind for the secret of how he controlled the fire and seized control of it, turning it on him. He shrank back, throwing out his hands and pushing against the wall of fire she was bombarding him with. She wouldn't budge. Most of the flames were under her control. She heated the flames and he tried to keep up so that he wouldn't burn or suffocate, but it was no use. John was fighting for everything he was worth and he was slowly losing.

_"__That's enough!"_ Magneto bellowed. Phoenix heard it in her mind, and Logan through her, but she paid him no attention.

_"__Phoenix_," Logan yelled, mentally and out loud. _"__Stop! You're killing him! !"_

Her eyes became completely black and she slowed her progress, slowed time itself.

Much as she had done before she'd killed Xavier.

Logan became frantic. He'd _promised_ Lee that he wouldn't let anyone kill John! He'd promised Ororo that John would be fine under Magneto's care! He couldn't fail them! He couldn't fail Betsy, who'd obviously known that he'd been needed to save John! He couldn't fail John when he knew that he had the power to make Phoenix listen to him!

John was now on his knees, shaking violently as though pushing with all his might. Phoenix wouldn't give an inch, and she smiled wider the more he struggled. But John kept pushing, his rage and desperation heating the flames around him and keeping them in his control to avoid being killed by the flames under Phoenix's control.

_"__Why am I bothering?"_ Logan's heart sank when he heard those thoughts coming from John. He thought that he didn't belong anywhere. No one wanted him. The X-Men didn't, Lee didn't, Ororo didn't, his mother hadn't wanted him, his father hadn't wanted him even before he was born, Mystique didn't even though he'd tried to talk Magneto out of abandoning her, Magneto didn't need him now that he had Phoenix…

**_"_**_**No!"**_ Logan shouted. John was going to let Phoenix kill him. He knew he was fighting a losing battle. He could release his control of the fire and he would crumble to ash in seconds.

And Phoenix wasn't above letting him do it.

_**"**__**JEAN! ! !"**_ Logan screamed in wild panic.

Phoenix blinked and frowned down at John. The fire raged on for a few more seconds before she extinguished it completely. The fire around herself, around John, around Logan and Magneto, even the flames in the trees were smothered in an instant.

John fell face first into the dirt with a grunt, shaking and panting heavily. His clothes had burned away completely. His skin was bright pink in some places, angry red in others. He had minor first and second degree burns just about everywhere, but thankfully nothing that looked fatal. He was alive. Logan wanted to weep with relief.

He caught the sent of ginger in the air and looked at Phoenix carefully. She looked confused. Logan tried to pinpoint exactly what she was confused about, but her thoughts were flying too fast for him to hear what she was thinking. The ginger had to mean that some of Jean's consciousness had seeped in. Was that what was confusing her? Did she not understand how Jean could be so weak and still manage to penetrate Phoenix's solid barrier?

Logan hoped that she'd answer him or at least slow her thoughts, but as soon as her eyes locked with John's the confusion melted into indifference. She was annoyed that 'the little shit' was glaring up at her. "You know," she said boredly, "one day you're going to mouth off to the wrong person and no one will be around to save your ass." She turned to Magneto, her voice flat. "He'll be useless on Alcatraz. He used up all his energy for that bitch fit."

Even shivering and naked and mildly burned on the ground, John managed to give Phoenix a withering look. "Fending off _your_ bitch fit," he corrected. "I'll be fine, no thanks to your psychosis." His voice sounded painfully hoarse and he coughed violently after that statement. But Logan had to admire the boy's tenacity. He was clearly weak; there was no doubt in Logan's mind that he wouldn't be able to stand on his own for more than a few seconds.

But, as hard as he was struggling, he was already sitting up and working on standing.

Phoenix's eyes flashed and John slumped to the ground, completely motionless. Logan felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. Intense panic bubbled inside him, but Phoenix gave him a look to silence his thoughts. "He's unconscious," she told him. "The brat will recover faster in his sleep, and give me a few hours of blessed silence."

Logan wanted to thank her for not killing him, but then wondered why she'd stopped at all. Not that he was complaining, but why had she listened to him? She stared at him, her mind silent and her expression confused. She didn't seem to be too sure of why she'd let John live either. _"__You… asked__,"_ she said finally.

She'd asked Logan to this camp to see her. He'd done it without question. He'd asked for John's life and she'd done the same. Logan could respect that, but he wanted to know _why_. Maybe if he knew, he could help her without having to kill her.

She blinked again, her mind becoming foggy. He heard faint whispering in her mind. It was her own voice, going back and forth. Jean and Phoenix were talking, he realized. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but one comment he heard quite clearly.

_"__He loves us."_

An image of him pressing Ororo against the doorframe invaded his mind and Phoenix snarled, _"He loves __**her.**__" _She threw up another image of Logan smiling at Jean after his six week absence. _"He loves __**you.**__ I have no one!"_

Another image passed by Logan's eyes; Victor, claiming Phoenix with animalistic passion. The image shocked Logan, but Jean wasn't worried about his opinion at the moment. _"You would seek him out again,"_ Jean said calmly.

Phoenix couldn't refute that. Sexually, she thought that he was sufficient. In some ways he was probably better than Logan would have been because he was more enthusiastic about embracing his wild side than Logan was. He had been more than willing to walk that line between pain and pleasure and hadn't been averse to taking a few steps in either direction.

And for a few blissful hours, nothing in the world had mattered to either of them but taking what they wanted from the other.

Logan worried for a moment that Victor would be among those in Magneto's army, but Phoenix shook her head slowly. Victor knew that something big was coming, but he was content to sit back and watch everyone tear each other apart. Logan was only slightly relieved by that, but was still appalled that she'd go to Victor in the absence of Logan. But his brother obviously couldn't hurt her, so Logan really couldn't make a case against it. _I guess,_ Logan thought slowly. _If you want him…_

_"__I'm a big girl,"_ Phoenix told him snidely. _"Scott couldn't handle me"_ – not that she'd wanted him for anything more than getting back at Emma – _"you don't want me"_ – she figured that was his loss – _"but Victor was pretty damn good. Good enough for a repeat."_

Logan caught a stray image of Victor looking at her and halted all thoughts of telling her not to go to him again. The look he was giving her wasn't a look of love or even really affection. Not by a long shot. But he seemed… relaxed. Maybe even content, though that might be a bit of a stretch for Victor. Certainly sated.

Coming down from their high, the pair had simply laid there in silence. They were no longer touching, they weren't looking at each other, but they were both radiating a calm that was more than apparent to the other and fueling their mutual relaxation. Those brief moments had anchored Phoenix from the chaos of her mind.

She was always aware of what she could do; she could look at a leaf and know millions of different things that she could do to it in an instant, as well as how much effort it would take and how long it would take. She would also know a million things to do with the branch that the leaf was growing out of, and the trunk attached to it, the dirt beneath it, the air above it. All at once, all the time, whether she laid eyes on it or was in the general area. She could hear the buzz of activity in every mind around her, knew every single life story from start to finish down to every single thought that had passed through their brains since birth.

And her dreams… Phoenix hadn't slept since she'd awakened days ago. Her dreams were full of fire and passion, of violence as primal and lasting as Creation itself. They took her to places beyond imagination that she somehow knew were as real as her own life. She couldn't shut it off or block it out, nor could she share it with anyone as it was sure to overwhelm their mind and put them in a catatonic state.

It was doing the same to her, only at a much slower rate; her fantastical powers were driving her to insanity.

She craved that silence that Victor had given her, but she didn't necessarily crave the source. She wanted it from Logan because he knew her better than anyone. What she'd said to him in the infirmary had been true; she'd wanted him to have sex with her, but she didn't want his love. Not the love he had for Ororo.

She wanted… _needed_… a… a friend?

For a moment her black eyes faded to green but Phoenix blinked it away and scowled, muttering about Jean and her damn emotions. How incredibly pathetic that she felt she needed a friend. What the fuck was next? Would she need a goddamn _hug_? !

_Phoenix_, Logan begged, _please! Come back to the mansion with me! Let us __**help**__ you! !_

She looked like she wanted to consider, but she shook her head slowly, growing angrier by the second and drowning out Jean. "Who is 'us'? Psylocke? The White Queen? !" she snarled out loud. She shook her head again, not bothering to wait for an answer. She turned to Magneto with a bored expression and he dropped to the ground, landing gracefully on his feet. He dusted himself off haughtily and glanced sideways at Logan, who was still up in the air. "Don't kill him," Phoenix said flatly. She turned her back and started walking away, leaving the two men and unconscious boy behind.

Logan followed her movement with his eyes, screaming after her in his mind. But it seemed that she's shut his mind to him, and he heard only silence. He turned his eyes to Magneto with a look that seemed to make the old man hesitate for a moment. This was _his_ fault for encouraging her! "I'm not leaving without her," Logan snarled.

Magneto recovered from his hesitation and gave Logan that infuriating smirk that made him want to tear the old man limb from limb. But he was still completely immobile and hovering two feet off the ground. And still under Magneto's control. "Yes," Magneto drawled, "you are."

He twitched his wrist and hurtled Logan through the forest at nearly fifty miles an hour. Logan wanted to shout as he rose higher into the air, but he was moving too fast to gather any oxygen into his lungs. He finally collided with a tree after going for about twenty miles. He hit every goddamn branch on the way down and lay motionless when he finally hit the bottom.

His body was brutally torn, his flesh as much in rags and tatters as his clothes. His bones had obviously arrived unscathed, but the rest of him was as close to the end as could be imagined; his spleen was ruptured, liver speared by a broken branch, a femoral artery severed in his thigh, lungs seemed intact although the diaphragm needed to pump them was savagely torn. Any one of those injuries was an absolute guarantee of death. The combination of them all…

… only made the healing process take longer. Logan tried to stay awake, but he lost too much blood. The flow of blood slowed and he felt a few of his wounds begin the painful process of healing. He let himself slip into darkness, trying not to think about the choked sobbing he heard in the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like Phoenix.


	90. Good Intentions

Little late on the chapter, and I apologize for that. There was a thing and I'm sure no one really cares about the thing but I've been putting off the thing for far too long and I got the thing done and now I can breathe easy!

At least, until next time.

Wilson, thanks much!

Enjoy, all!

* * *

By human standards, the soldiers were quite stealthy. By the standards of a feral mutant – such as Logan – the quiet crunch of leaves and whispered commands of, "Team Leader, advance to Bravo One" were loud enough to wake the dead. Or the nearly dead.

Logan kept his own noise levels to a minimum as he fought the sleepy fog that had settled over him. He didn't need to be completely awake, but he needed to be alert enough to make a getaway if he was discovered. Even behind closed lids he knew that it was nighttime, and he had a hunch as to why the troops were in the forest in the first place. They sure as hell weren't looking for _him_, so he lay still with his eyes closed for a long time, hoping that none of them would stumble across him. He'd be running on adrenaline and nothing else if he had to fight now.

He sighed in relief when he heard their collective noise fade into the background and allowed himself to slip back into unconsciousness. He was nowhere near ready to get up.

Some time later he awakened again, this time to an animal shifting nearby. His eyes fluttered open and he saw that it was no longer nighttime. He also saw that the shifting animal was a large owl, standing on his leg with its intelligent eyes staring right at him. He didn't shake it off because those talons looked sharp as hell and it would likely take a large chunk of his skin with it if it got too startled. He _really_ didn't need that.

He made a low, throaty noise at the creature. It started out low enough to be a purr but Logan steadily growled louder until it was a full out snarl and the bird stiffened and finally flew away. He sat up gingerly and took inventory of his injuries; all of his external wounds had healed – probably hours ago – but he was still doing some heavy duty damage control on the inside.

Still, it was nothing that wouldn't heal with time, and he needed to head back to the mansion. He wasn't sure how he knew, but Magneto and Phoenix were long gone. And he had a damn good idea as to where they'd gone. He looked up to calculate the time and frowned.

If he was right – and he was almost positive that he was – then he'd been out for an entire twenty-two hours! _Shit_, he thought. _How long ago did they leave?_ Before the troops had come, if Logan knew Magneto as well as he thought he did. But that could've been minutes after he'd passed out, minutes before he'd awakened to the troops, or anywhere in between. He didn't have time to sit around and ponder it.

He ignored the pain as he got to his feet and began walking. He had to do quite a bit of looking around before he knew where he was and how to get back to the road, but an hour and a half later found him shucking his bloodied clothes and putting on new ones before he got on the motorcycle and high tailed it back to the mansion. He had to race three police cars and lose a helicopter to get out of a speeding ticket - and likely several other offences - but Logan made a five hour trip in about three and a half.

"Storm?" he bellowed, slapping the double doors of the entryway so hard that he damn near popped them off the hinges.

Hurried footsteps sounded at the staircase and Logan turned to see her descending. "What are you doing back here?" she asked.

The accusation in her tone was clear, and for a moment Logan wasn't sure how to respond to that. After everything he'd said before leaving, had she _still_ thought that he was in love with Jean and wouldn't be coming back? Or had she perhaps not wanted him to return?

_Dangerous slope_, he told himself. Trying to figure out what she was thinking didn't always serve him well. Not when it came to matters like this. If he wanted to know, he'd have to ask.

Luckily, he didn't have to. "I would've thought it would take longer than that to find her and talk to her," she said as she reached the bottom of the staircase and looked him over expectantly. She reached out and rubbed dirt or possibly dried blood off of his cheek. "You look like hell."

"I feel even better," he muttered back. "We've got problems and I'm going to need help."

"So did you find her, then?"

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "She's still with Magneto, Locked at the hip. But I'm not sure they're walking the same road."

She frowned. "You said she called you there."

"She did. Then Magneto found me and John – that _idiot_ – obviously had a death wish – "

Ororo's face turned pale as sheet, her eyes glazing over. Her pulse skyrocketed, she began hyperventilating, and her knees buckled out from under her. Logan caught her easily but snapping her out of it took a bit more effort. "He's alive, Storm. Ororo! Listen to me, darlin'! Breathe!" _Shit!_ He could've worded that statement better. "Ororo! Look at me, please! John is fine, I promise!"

She blinked several times and focused her gaze on him, as though dizzy. Her pulse slowed, but only a little. "He's… not dead?" she asked weakly.

He held her tight against him, gently stroking her hair and looking directly into her startled eyes, hoping that his composure might calm her too. "Not at all. He has a few burns," he admitted, "but nothing a tough brat like him can't handle."

She stood herself upright and glared daggers at him. She obviously didn't like him being referred to in such a way, but Logan wasn't going to apologize. It would've been an empty apology and that was a miserable way to restart their relationship. Besides, he didn't want the Australian to die. Ororo knew that. Logan kind of liked John, and honestly hoped that he'd be all right some day.

But Jean had been right; John was a little shit.

And as far as the scare that Logan had given her… He'd just put his foot in his mouth. Ororo knew that he had a habit of doing that.

When Logan didn't apologize for calling her surrogate son a brat she wiggled out of his grasp, still scowling as she got her breathing and heart rate under control. But she sighed and let it go. It seemed that they were both making progress. "Where are they?" she asked.

"On the move," Logan replied, looking up as Hank walked towards them hurriedly. "And I know where they're going."

"You're saying you _saw_ Magneto?" asked Hank, who got ignored for his trouble.

_What do __**you**__ think, _Logan internally grumbled. "We've got to go _now_," he told Ororo as he began walking down the hall. "They're going to attack Alcatraz and we're the only ones that stand a chance of stopping him."

"There are troops stationed on that island," Hank mumbled, possibly thinking that Logan wasn't going to listen to what he had to say.

On the contrary. Logan turned to him and looked the blue mutant directly in the eye. "Not enough to stop them," he warned. "Trust me on that."

Hank nodded grimly. He was going to heed Logan's word this time. For that, he was thankful.

"Let's suit up," Ororo said.

They continued down the hall but Logan stopped when he caught the scent of vanilla and heard someone clear their throat. "Excuse me," Warren said, eyes darting between them all nervously. "I can help too. I mean, I'd like to – if you want, that is."

Ororo, Hank, and Logan all turned around and sized him up. Warren was wearing a blue sweater now and had obviously cut holes in the back to accommodate his wings. They'd need to do that to one of the suits if he was coming along. His wings were folded comfortably on his back and Logan thought back to his analysis of his wings as well as strength. While he clearly had the potential, that didn't necessarily mean that he had skill.

The longer they stared, the more uncomfortable Warren seemed to look about their close scrutiny. "I've heard that Magneto is going after my father," he said after a while.

Logan shrugged. "It's possible." He knew that they were going to destroy the child who's mutation had been the foundation of the cure, but he didn't know if they were seeking out the creater as well.

"My _father_," Warren said, trying to get the point across. "He may be wrong, sir, but he's not evil. I'm _not_ going to leave him out there alone."

His voice shook as much from outrage as from nerve, but Logan knew that he was absolutely serious. Warren was going to Alcatraz with or without the X-Men. All that needed to be decided was whether he was only going to save his father or if he was going to assist them in fighting against Magneto's army.

Logan nodded to him. "Knock me down," he commanded.

Warren gave him a strange look, but when Logan said nothing to disprove that he was serious, he almost missed the movement of Warren's large wing. His right wing stayed put, but his left wing shot out and hooked right under Logan's knees, taking his feet out from under him. Logan was going to use the momentum to spin into a back flip, but that same wing slapped him and sent him flying back a good five feet, landing hard on his ass. The air got knocked out of him and he lay on the ground for a good thirty seconds before he sat up and stared at Warren.

That one wing had taken him down with relative ease. Obviously Logan hadn't been completely on the defense, but he was nearly three hundred pounds of muscle and metal and Warren had used one wing to slap him away like a fly. He'd actually managed the maneuver quite beautifully. So he certainly knew the strength of his wings and knew that he would've been laid out if he'd tried to come at Logan any other way. It seemed to, that he was quite dexterous with his wings.

Logan had initially thought that Warren was a wide-eyed, fearful young man. That wasn't the case at all; he was just shy.

Logan got to his feet and watched Warren's wing quiver a little as he drew it back to him. He paused to pick at and straighten a few of his feathers - possibly in an attempt to conceal the satisfied look that Logan saw anyway - before folding it neatly behind him and looking expectantly at Logan. He nodded to the young man. "We'll need all the help we can get. You'll do."

Ororo nodded to Warren as well and turned to Logan. "Gambit isn't back yet, but I'll go get Emma and Betsy." She raced up the stairs and the three men went down to the basement to change.

Despite how many years it had supposedly been since Hank had been an X-Man, his suit was still in the basement on display and he went right to it. Logan looked through all of the suits before deciding that, unfortunately, Scott's uniform was the closest to Warren's size. Hoping that Emma didn't tear him limb from limb for giving Scott's uniform to Warren, he took it out and examined it to see where he might have to cut holes to accommodate his wings. Warren politely showed him how big the cuts would have to be and Logan nodded, popping a claw out and poising it above the back to cut…

"Where the _fuck _is he?" someone screeched.

Logan jumped, nearly cutting his hand. He scowled at the door just as Betsy burst through, so furious that her entire body was covered in a soft purple glow. Her eyes settled on Warren and he – likely unwittingly – puffed out his feathers as a sign of self defense.

Betsy didn't know a thing about animal body language, so she probably didn't understand the threat. "You." She pointed to Warren. "Get out," she snapped.

He unconsciously took a step away from her, but kept eye contact. "Why?"

"Because you're not going."

In a completely avian display of agitation and aggression, Warren crouched a little lower and the feathers of his wings ruffled and puffed out. His pupils quickly enlarged and shrank; pinning, much like parrots eyes did. His head was down a little lower, and his body was locked and rigid. He didn't even seem to be aware of the warning he was throwing out, and Logan was sure that if he'd had tail feathers then those would've been fanned out too.

Even he took a step away from the man. He sure as hell wasn't looking too shy anymore. Logan couldn't say that he knew a lot about angels, but birds could be nasty creatures.

"I _am_ going," Warren said, his voice steady but still clearly outraged. "My father is a target. And just who the hell do you think you are to tell me what to do?"

Betsy blinked in surprise, and Logan guessed that she'd never been spoken to in such a way. Logan wouldn't've been surprised to learn that this was the first time she'd been talked back to. The power she radiated commanded respect, not defiance.

But she managed to smother her surprise quickly and only seemed to get angrier. The purple glow surrounding her entire body pulsed brighter, especially the hand that she produced her katana with. "I said," she growled, "You're. not. going. Now get out!"

He stood up straight and glared at her, his feathers ruffling even more and spreading out a little. "You're not my goddamn keeper!"

Betsy moved too fast even for Logan to catch the movement. That butterfly appeared over her face and she wrapped a hand around Warren's throat, slamming him into the display case and nearly shattering the glass. Though her hand was wrapped tightly around his throat, he glared down at her, his bright blue eyes pinning in that bird-like warning to back off.

When she seemed to squeeze tighter he angled his wings over his shoulders and used them to roughly shove her off of him. She fell to the ground and he towered over her, spreading his wings until they were scraping the ceiling and puffing out the feathers, making them look twice as large.

As quickly as she was down, she was back up. Katana in hand, she poised it an inch from his heart and stepped right up to him. To his credit, he didn't flinch of back away from her. "You're pissing me off, Gabriel," she spat viciously. "If I say you're not going then you're not. _fucking. __**going! !**_"

Emma, who'd likely slinked in during all the excitement, suddenly let out a high pitched peel of laughter; the cruel kind that made the hairs on the back of Logan's neck stand on end and, apparently, made Warren's wings quiver in agitation. "That is just _delicious_!" she gushed.

"No one is in the mood for your bullshit, Frost," Betsy warned. "Back off."

"Now why would I do that?" she asked, and evil smile on her lips. "He should at least know _why_ you don't want him to go."

Warren frowned in confusion as he looked between the two women, his anger beginning to evaporate. "Why?"

Betsy moved the blade from his heart to his throat as she hissed, "Shut up, you."

Emma somehow managed to grin wider. "She doesn't want you to get hurt, little bird," she cooed. "Psylocke sees the future from time to time, and she sees your magnificent wings getting ripped off if you go to fight with the X-Men on Alcatraz."

Warren swallowed so hard that Logan heard it from across the room. He glanced down at Betsy with an apologetic and slightly confused look. "You're… trying to protect me?" he asked, glancing down at her katana. "Like this?"

She looked downright horrified. She gave him a quick looked up and down, looked at her katana, looked back up at him, all the while shaking her head in disbelief. Her heart was beating double time and Logan actually thought that he saw her cheeks coloring before she huffed and made her katana disappear. She stormed over to the door as if to leave, muscles so tense that he caught the tremors rippling across her back even through her shirt. From behind she looked furious, but Logan knew better.

She was mortified.

"You know what," she snapped, "why don't you just fucking go! See if I care when you come back with a bleeding V gouged into your back where your wings used to be!"

Ororo chose that moment to walk in and scowled at Betsy. Emma, on the other hand, started laughing richly again. "Don't be that way, honey. Everyone needs love, even ninja assassins."

Betsy turned around and leaned against the doorframe. The look of outrage and embarrassment had disappeared completely and she pinned Emma with a calculating glare. "Since you're in such a sharing mood, why don't you tell them why _you_ aren't going?"

The blonde's giggles ceased abruptly. "You heartless bitch…" she hissed venomously.

"What?" Betsy asked innocently. "Everyone needs love, according to you. I think that ought to include frigid White Queens."

"_Enough_, Psylocke," Emma snarled.

Logan frowned, looking between the two. Why the hell was it so important that they not find out why Emma wasn't going? Was she going to die if she went to Alcatraz?

"She's right, everyone," Betsy continued, addressing them all while looking right at Emma. "I _do_ see the future. I saw that the angel's wings get ripped off if he goes, I saw that I get hit with the cure if I go, Remy was never going because he's off tracking down the river rat and" – she paused for effect – "I saw that Phoenix kills Emma's baby if she goes."

Ororo frowned, looking down at Emma's very flat stomach. "What baby?"

Betsy's mouth twisted into a cruel smile of her own. "Scott's baby."

"I'll _fucking __**KILL YOU**_," Emma roared as her skin turned to diamond. Betsy only smirked as she produced her glowing katana and dropped into a fighting stance. Logan and Ororo moved forward as one to hold Emma back, using all of the strength they possessed to keep the enraged diamond woman out of reach of Betsy.

In a bold move, Warren blocked Betsy's view of Emma with his large wings, and Logan breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't just jumped at her from behind. If Betsy was truly a ninja, she would've hacked off a limb before wondering who had been fool enough to touch her. He was quietly talking her down and it seemed to be working. After all, she wasn't the one that wanted to fight.

Keeping Emma back wasn't quite so easy.

Hank, Bobby, and Peter – in his organic metal form – had appeared and were struggling to pull a livid Emma out of the room. When they finally managed to drag her out into the basement hall, she shook the five mutants off of her as though they weighed nothing at all and reverted back to her flesh form as she stormed down the hall. They all watched her leave and Logan – on impulse – ran after her. Wisely, no one followed him.

He was only a few steps away before she turned around and got right in his face, making him take a few steps back. "Make it fast, Wolverine," she snarled, her nose inches from his. "I have a short fuse at the best of times."

Logan hesitated for an instant, but decided to plow ahead. Like him, Emma was a very straight forward woman and didn't have the patience for beating around the bush. "Are you ashamed to be carrying Scott's baby?"

She recoiled in surprise, possibly wondering if she'd heard correctly. "Of course not," she finally snapped.

He pointed down the hall, where they'd just come from. "Then what the hell was that?"

Emma took a deep breath and looked away from him, visibly fighting for control of her emotions. She looked like she wanted to scream, but she spoke softly so that the words barely bounced off the walls of the basement. "Betsy knows – she fucking _knows_ – that I didn't want to tell anyone about my pregnancy!" she seethed.

"Were you going to get rid of it," he asked calmly.

"_Fuck no!_" she screeched, in his mind and out loud.

"Then why – "

"Because Betsy thinks she knows what's fucking best for me! She has good intentions but she doesn't know that every reminder of Scott is a reminder of the fact that he loved Jean more than me! I tire myself out keeping that locked away, but I do it because I don't know how else to survive! The only way I'll ever have his love is through this child." Her voice was steadily rising until she was screaming right in Logan's face. "He loved _me_ before Jean came along. He even loved me while we were all friends! And Phoenix – oh, that _bitch!_ She knew that she was behind the barrier so firmly because I helped Xavier lock her there. I was only helping! I thought he knew what was best for her! And because she wanted to get back at me… Phoenix, that bitch, that… that _vindictive, hateful, fucking__** demon TOOK HIM FROM ME! ! !**_"

Tears began streaming down her cheeks and she wiped them away with a look of disgust and self loathing. "I don't know why he ever came back to me, but even _then_ he was thinking of her! Sometimes I had to put the illusion in his mind that I was Jean to get him to…" She covered her mouth and shook her head violently, like she wanted to throw up. "Do you have any idea how fucking _**degrading**_ that is? But I loved him… I wanted him to love _me_ again…" Faster than lightning, her fist turned into diamond and she punched the metal wall. It caved in a good three inches with the force of her blow, and she sank to her knees, sobbing violently. "Do you have any idea what it's like to watch someone you love while they love someone else?"

Logan said nothing, because he couldn't begin to guess at the helplessness she felt. He hadn't thought that Betsy revealing her to be pregnant was such a low blow, but it was clear that the mere mention of Scott brought forth nasty memories that Emma didn't want to begin to contemplate. Betsy could be quite cold blooded when she wanted to be.

But Logan had to admit that Emma was too. It seemed that they both lashed out and pointed out the shortcomings of others to avoid appearing weak. Logan wouldn't've considered caring about others to be a weakness, but before his departure he had seen for himself how awkward Betsy had been with something as simple and harmless as giving a compliment. She was a private person. Emma had made Betsy appear to be soft-hearted in front of all of them. Throwing out that Betsy was concerned about Warren in particular – especially since she seemed to… _notice_ him – had likely been a heinous offense to Betsy. She'd simply retaliated.

By revealing that Emma was carrying Scott's baby.

Logan raked his fingers through his hair, feeling a headache coming on. No one was perfect, but shit! _More drama then a goddamn soap opera,_ he thought wearily.

"Tell me about it," she muttered, leaning her back against the wall and crossing her arms. Anger was still radiating off of her in waves, but the tears had stopped and she seemed a little calmer. Logan supposed that he had pregnancy hormones to thank for her intense fit, as well as the fact that she was now calm.

He looked her over carefully and noticed that her cheeks looked a little hollow and her eyes looked a little darker. She probably hadn't been eating or sleeping properly since she'd learned of Scott's death, and that worried him for more reasons than the health of the baby. "Nothing I eat wants to stay down," she mumbled. "And when I close my eyes, the nightmares start."

Logan frowned. "Nightmares?"

She smiled bitterly. "Oh yes. Taking Scott wasn't enough for our friend, the Phoenix. She filed away their every intimate moment and filtered them into my mind especially for me to watch. Every time I go to sleep I see them kissing, touching, whispering how they can't live without each other… I've been dreaming that shit for years. I even needed medication for it at one point. Why the hell do you think I ended up in Massachusetts? Go ahead and picture T'Challa fucking Ororo every night and let's see how well _you_ sleep."

Logan flinched. When he and Ororo had been – for lack of a better term – broken up, the images of his time with Ororo had been hard enough. To imagine that she might've gone back to Africa with T'Challa… Logan looked down at Emma with wide eyes. The mere _thought_ distressed him. And Emma had been dealing with the real thing for years.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she snapped. "Stop pitying me. I'm not going to fight Magneto and his army, which means that you're wasting time by sitting here with me. I don't need a goddamn therapist!"

"I wasn't offering," Logan replied as evenly as he could. Her foul mood was starting to rub off on him. He knew that her deflection was her way of defending herself, but didn't she know that he was only trying to help? _Well,_ he thought, _look what happened the last time someone was 'only trying to help.'_

He frowned, replaying everything that she had said about Phoenix and Scott in the past few minutes. "Why would Scott come back to you if he loved Jean so much?" he blurted.

She gave him a look as black as death. "Tread carefully," she warned.

He hesitated, but only for a moment. This was something that she needed to hear. "You didn't mention that Phoenix made Scott fall in love with Jean too."

Emma shook her head. "She didn't. Who the hell – "

"Phoenix told me that." Emma's mouth snapped shut and she remained deathly still. Logan took that as a sign to continue. "She told me that she made Jean _and_ Scott fall in love with _each other_ to get back at you for locking her up."

"So… she was in control of Scott's emotions the entire time," she said slowly. "And _she_ sent him to my doorstep every once in a blue moon. And made him think about _her_ while he was fucking _me_. She… threw me a _bone!_" She tipped her head back and cackled maliciously at the double meaning. There was no humor in her tone; only hysteria and a hint of insanity. "That's fucking _**fantastic!**_"

He sighed heavily. This wasn't the Emma from the picture in Xavier's office. Not by a long shot. Phoenix had made her into this. Emma was cold and calculating and she refused to show her emotions because she was in so much pain. Looking at her now, Logan wondered if pain was really all that she knew. She'd said herself that she locked away parts of herself from others. She had to find pleasure in the darkness around her because it was the only way she knew how to survive.

Not live – survive, like it was a struggle for her to do even that.

She'd only tried to help the professor, who was trying to help Jean. But Phoenix had seen it as punishment, and had viciously evened the score. The result was a dead professor and a woman who found bitter and cruel amusement in her suffering to keep from going insane. How could Emma not laugh at the misfortune of others when she could laugh at her own?

Logan erected a mental barrier before he addressed Emma again. "Phoenix can't completely suppress everything," he explained patiently. At least, that was his theory. It made sense, considering the fact that Jean had been able to make herself known it came to telling Phoenix that Logan loved them.

Jean's love for Logan had broken the barrier. Perhaps it had been the same with Scott, and his true feelings for Emma had overwhelmed him from time to time. If his love for Emma had been that intense, why wouldn't he go to her? "She can't lock away emotions like love. Not forever. She wasn't powerful enough to keep her hold on Scott, and that's why he came back to you. If Scott really loved you to begin with, then I think that Phoenix's power slipped and he remembered how much he loved you."

Maybe Logan was a romantic at heart or something, but he had to believe that that was the reason that Scott had gone back to her, even if he didn't have a scrap of evidence to prove it.

Emma glared up at Logan from her spot on the floor. Fresh tears still in her eyes, blonde hair a mess, and eyes sunken a little, she looked like she was barely hanging on to her will to live. "That's a weak hypothesis," she said flatly.

She was absolutely right, but Logan said nothing. Right before his eyes Emma was decaying over Scott's death in much the same way that he had decayed over Jean's death. But there were subtle differences. Emma has upset over Scott's death, but she seemed to be dealing with the reality of it. She knew that he was gone. Scott had seemed lost, almost like he'd been experiencing separation anxiety. And why not? Perhaps he hadn't known what to do with himself when a piece of Phoenix in the back of his mind had suddenly disappeared.

Logan shook his head slowly. "If she's as sadistic as you say she is, then she wouldn't 'throw you a bone', as you so eloquently put it." Actually, she might've. As brutal as Phoenix was, that sounded like something that she'd enjoy very much. But he didn't want Emma to hear that. That's why he'd blocked her out.

She said nothing, staring off into space with an expression that clearly said that she wanted to break something. Logan stiffened, hoping that she hadn't heard him. He didn't want Emma to know that this was all speculation on his part. He wasn't sure he'd be able to watch her suffer the same fate as Scott. She was already so socially alienated, and Logan was sure that it would only get worse.

He mentally sighed in relief when he felt her pushing at his barriers a little. She stopped when she met firm resistance, but she glared at him distrustfully. After a few minutes of thoughtful and tense silence, Emma's look of distrust morphed into impatience. She wanted to be left alone to sulk. Logan could understand that. "Sorry," he muttered to her as he made his way down the hall and back to the locker room. "Food for thought."

She mentally called after him. Her voice was somber, but he knew that as painful as that outburst and talk had been, she'd needed it. "_Thank you, Logan_."

_Anytime,_ he thought back.


	91. Hold This Line

Logan made a detour on his way to his own locker room. If he was hearing what he thought he was hearing, there'd be hell to pay.

He barged into the locker room reserved for the younger X-Men, glaring at them all. They were in the midst of putting on their uniforms, but they froze when Logan entered. None of them at least had the good grace to look guilty, which made him actually shiver in an attempt to control his temper. "What the fuck is _this_," he demanded.

Kitty – who was already dressed and had been sitting on a bench waiting on the boys – stood up to her full height and stared up at Logan, displaying that familiar fearless confidence that had been absent the day before. "We're coming with," she announced, motioning for Bobby and Peter to continue getting dressed.

He was decidedly _not_ impressed with her self-assurance in this instance. "The _hell_ you are!" How had they even heard that the adults were going to Alcatraz? As far as Logan knew, Ororo had only told Emma and Betsy. Then again, the whole damn house probably knew where they were going, as loud as Betsy had been screeching…

"We trained for this," Bobby insisted as he zipped up his uniform. "We're ready."

"Where the hell did you come from, anyway?" Logan snapped impatiently. "I thought you were out looking for Rogue. The fact that you gave up so fast isn't very reassuring…"

Bobby glared at the Canadian. "I _was_ looking for her," he said heatedly. "I got a little sidetracked when Pyro blew up a Cure Clinic – "

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. He'd had a feeling that that little publicity stunt had been John's doing. It really didn't surprise him. "God_damn _him!"

He locked his arms at his sides, struggling not to boil over. All the tension, all the fighting, all the death, all the failure… The weight had steadily been piling up on him and he felt like he might buckle under the pressure. His vision was already tinted pink, but fear held the Wolverine back.

He'd told Ororo that he feared losing it and letting Wolverine kill everyone, and he still did despite her assurance that it was impossible. He wasn't used to fear like this but, thankfully, Wolverine was ill-equipped to handle it. It gave Logan a small measure of control that he desperately needed; he was navigating rough waters.

He took a deep breath and at least managed to control the volume of his voice. "Since when the fuck are you ready?" Logan demanded. "If you're so goddamn ready to be _soldiers_ in a _war_, then what in god's name was that ridiculous fuckery in the Danger Room last week?"

None of them answered him. Even Kitty looked a little ashamed. _They __**should **__feel ashamed, _Logan thought with a small measure of satisfaction. That display had been absolutely pitiful. And they thought they were ready to enter into a fight of this magnitude? Their silence only fueled his rising temper. "This is going to be _real_ battle with _real_ blood and _real. fucking. __**death!**_ I don't care if you think you understand even a _little_ of what I'm talking about; you don't. You have _no_ proper frame of reference!"

Hell, deep down inside, they _knew_ they'd live forever; armies preferred their recruits young for that very reason. But Logan didn't _want_ to build an army. He hadn't wanted them to learn the realities of his life this way. Or ever. They were too young to have this burden placed on their shoulders.

"This isn't going to be like class or the Danger Room. Shit like this is only learned the hard way. You cross that Rubicon, you're _never_ coming back. What you see, what you do, it stays with you _forever_!"

Bobby and Peter – while it seemed that they wouldn't be swayed – were avoiding his gaze at all costs, but Kitty was glaring unflinchingly right at Logan. "I'm sorry," she said snidely. "I'm not exactly sure what we did to give you the impression that we _wanted_ to do this, or that we're chomping at the bit to see some 'real action', but forgive me. Bobby and Peter, too.

"Maybe you see us as children, but the fact of the matter is that we're young adults. And we're not idiots. We _know_ that we have no proper frame of reference. We'll never know what this kind of fight is really like until we see it for ourselves, but that doesn't mean that we have delusions of grandeur either. It'll be ugly, but that's tough shit because we're obligated to go. If we can't help with this – something that really counts – then what's the point of being X-Men at all? _This_ is what the X-Men are for; to fight battles that humans can't. We're going. End of story. I know you're scared; we are too. Our fear will only hold us back. You ought to know that better than anyone. We need to shelf it for the time being if we want more than a snowball's chance in hell of getting out of this alive."

He narrowed his eyes at her, grinding his teeth. He _hated_ that she was right, but he couldn't deny it. She wasn't pretending that she was fearless. Perhaps what she'd said had been her way of trying to tell him that he needed to stop pretending that he wasn't afraid either.

Damn it all, he didn't _do_ fear (partly as his outer 'badass' façade, and partly because he usually had nothing to fear). More often than not, he didn't fear for himself or for others. And when he _was_ afraid, he buried it deep down to keep others – and sometimes himself – from panicking unnecessarily.

He knew that he could run off of rage and even pain, knew how to channel those feelings because he knew the source. But fear was an emotion that he'd have to engage deeper. He had to know where it had come from, he might even have to lose or relinquish his control in order to conquer his fear and get rid of it. It wasn't something that could just be controlled or funneled outright. He ran on basic, gut instinct, dealt with fight or flight. Mostly fight.

He knew that they were strong and could handle themselves. But could they maintain a fight for survival indefinitely? _Possibly_. But he didn't know for sure.

Or did he? It suddenly occurred to him that Betsy had mentioned nothing about Kitty, Bobby, and Peter not being allowed to go along. If Betsy was reluctant to go for fear of getting hit with the cure, and was ready to physically assault Warren to keep him from going, then why would she allow the youngest of the X-Men to go to Alcatraz if there was any chance that they'd die?

"_What do you think, genius_," she drawled. "_You could've asked me before you went ape shit on them_."

_You haven't seen ape shit yet, lady_, Logan said snidely. _And you're one to talk after that display with Emma and Warren._

He felt her stiffen – mentally, if that was possible – and he closed his mind to her, refocusing his attention on the three teens. Bobby and Peter were no longer avoiding his harsh gaze, but still stood a few steps behind Kitty. And, of course, Kitty confidently stood her ground, her arms folded across her chest. "This is _our_ fight, Logan," she told him firmly. "Not just yours."

He didn't know what to say. He couldn't tell her that she was wrong, because that was obviously a lie. So what _could_ he say? Nothing. Logan turned on his heel and stormed out of their locker room. If they were going to come, he couldn't stop them.

Perhaps that was why he was afraid. Because it _wasn't_ his fight. He was going to have help – he _needed_ help – but at what cost? They didn't heal like he did, and he couldn't be in five places at once to watch everyone's back and make sure that they didn't make a mistake that would cost them their lives. They were just kids. Hank was only a politician. And Ororo…

Another tremor of fear raced up his spine. If she was truly an omega mutant as Xavier had said, then she ought to be almost equal in power to Phoenix. Yet a good portion of his anxiety stemmed from fear for her.

He'd seen what both women could do, and it seemed that even though Ororo was quite powerful, Phoenix had more control of the massive power that she wielded (though, admittedly, she had a much shorter attention span). It had taken little effort for her to kill Xavier while levitating a house and keeping five mutants immobile. Ororo had nearly created a storm with enough power to level half of the northern hemisphere, but only because she'd bottled up her emotions for Lord only knew how long and had finally cracked. Could she wield that power _and_ stay in control of her emotions?

Logan tried to push it out of his mind. When he crawled too deep inside his mind, he never felt quite like himself. Perhaps that was a warning flag of sorts, but he'd have to tuck it away for the moment. He tugged on his uniform in less than a minute and made his way down the hall to the hanger. The suit was new (his second replacement) so it was terribly stiff and he knew that it would probably get torn to hell before the night was through.

God willing, a new uniform would be his biggest problem. He could handle that. He _really_ didn't want to attend another goddamn funeral.

As Hank fell in step beside him, Logan had to do a double take. The blue mutant's old uniform hadn't looked too bad in the picture, but seeing it face to face made Logan glad that the X-Men had upgraded. While he was sure that the suit was every bit as efficient as his own, the thing was unforgivably ugly.

"If you want it so much, you can have it," Hank told him sourly, looking a little uncomfortable without his business suit to shield him.

Logan smirked, shaking his head. He wouldn't make fun of him, because Logan really hadn't felt much better the first time he'd been forced to wear his own uniform. He felt much more at home in jeans and his motorcycle jacket, and it just so happened that business suits and ties were Hank's element.

But he couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Damn," was all he could say.

"I left the X-Men to become a politician. A new suit wasn't made for me. Hard to believe this still fits me…" Hank said with a chuckle. Then he turned serious. "I don't suppose you know specifically why Magneto wants this cure."

"Does it really matter," Logan asked flatly. "If Magneto gets a hold of that cure, there'll be no stopping him. Is that not reason enough?"

"Was only curious if he had a specific plan in mind," Hank said. "Does he want to steal one cartridge of the cure? The whole supply?"

"He wants to destroy the source and use the remainder for any mutants that stand in his way."

"Oh dear," he muttered. "Can you estimate how many he has?"

"An army," Logan replied. "_And_ Jean."

"His powers have their limits…"

"Yeah, well, hers don't." Logan saw the three teens standing defiantly outside the hanger doors beside Ororo. He suppressed a shiver of fear. This was really going to happen; they were really coming. All of them were really _going_. "As much as we've lost in the past week," he warned them, "that's nothing compared to what's on the line."

Bobby watched the two as they gravely approached. But his face was determined. "You _need_ us, especially if you plan on going up against an army. There are only six of us, Logan."

Logan briefly looked at Ororo before looking back at Bobby, Kitty and Peter. "Yeah, were outnumbered. I'm not going to lie to you." He stepped right up to Bobby. There was nothing he could do to discourage them from coming, and now wasn't the time for scare tactics. "Kitty was right. We lost Scott. We lost the professor. We might lose Jean again. If we don't fight now, everything they stood for will die with them. I'm not going to let that happen. Are you?"

Before his eyes, the last traces of a boyhood left Bobby's eyes as he shook his head with a fierce look of determination. The same happened to Peter. Even Kitty – who was only seventeen, not even a legal adult yet – shed the remnants of her adolescence. Logan nodded his approval. "Then we stand together. When we get on that plane, we're not students and teachers anymore. We're not kids and adults. We're soldiers. X-Men. _All_ of us."

Bobby looked back at Kitty and Peter, who both wore the same look he did, he nodded and turned back to Logan. "We're in."

Logan nodded back. "Let's go."

He watched the three younger X-Men and Hank go into the hanger to board the _Blackbird_, but Ororo lagged behind, looking hesitant. "They're ready," Logan told her. He certainly hoped that they were…

She nodded. "Yeah, I know." She looked up at Logan with a no-bullshit expression. "But are _you_ ready to do what you need to when the time comes?"

"_If_," he said in a biting tone.

Her expression softened. "I hope you don't think that I want you to do this," she said after a long moment. "I really wish you didn't have to bare this burden. If I could take it on my shoulders, I would." Logan wasn't sure when her hand had found its way to his arm, but he only noticed when she gave him a gentle squeeze and let go, going inside and leaving Logan to stand there in thoughtful silence before finally going into the jet.

He sat in the co-pilot seat without a second of hesitation and focused his gaze dead ahead as she prepped the jet. "I am ready," he told her quietly as she waited for the engines to warm up. "I may not want to…" He swallowed, unable to say it. "I know what I have to do if things take a turn for the worst. And I wouldn't wish it on anybody else, least of all you."

He jumped a little when he felt her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," Ororo said.

Logan frowned at her. She suddenly seemed so sad. Perhaps the enormity of what they were about to do was hitting her. But why would she apologize for that? "For what?"

"So many things…" She looked away from him. "Everything, I guess," she whispered.

He knew what she meant. She was sorry that Logan might have to be the one to kill Jean. She was sorry that they had to risk their lives to fight Magneto's army on Alcatraz. She was sorry that Xavier and Scott had died.

None of those things were her fault, but she was sorry all the same. Perhaps she was also sorry that their relationship had been an uphill struggle since the very beginning. Maybe she was sorry that they'd suffered while they were apart simply to satisfy their pride.

Did it really matter exactly what she was sorry about?

Logan reached out and turned her so that she was looking at him. He was immediately lost in her eyes, drowning himself in all of the love he found shining in them. That was all that mattered; she loved him. She had nothing to be sorry for.

Hank cleared his throat gently and Ororo blinked, breaking the contact. It was only then that Logan realized that they'd been moving to kiss each other, gravitating towards each other like magnets.

Ororo reluctantly straightened in her seat and Logan did the same, his heart hammering. _Their_ fight…

That was the damn problem. He wasn't too afraid for himself. Phoenix could likely kill him, maybe as soon as he set foot on Alcatraz. That didn't scare him – possibly because he knew that she wouldn't – but what _did_ scare him was that she could do the same to any of the others that were sitting in that jet with him.

He doubted that she'd pause for any of them.

"_X-Men. All of us_."

Logan squared his shoulders and hardened his gaze. They were his teammates, and if he didn't have faith in them then they were already doomed.

The jet was dead quiet as Ororo piloted the jet. Hank silently took up the tech station behind her seat and the younger X-Men didn't utter a word to each other the entire trip. Nothing needed to be said. They were all mentally preparing for the task ahead, and no one wanted to get in the way of that.

The sun had almost completely set by the time they made it to Alcatraz, but there was plenty of light from fire and security lights illuminating the chaos below. They were late, but hopefully not too late.

Everyone crowded up front for a view of the Golden Gate Bridge – or what was left of it – crudely bridging the mainland and Alcatraz, likely for any other mutants that decided they wanted to join the fight. Phoenix could've done it with little to no effort, but something told Logan that it had probably been Magneto. In fact, he was almost certain of that, as he could clearly picture the flat look that Phoenix would give him if he'd ordered her to move it. The bridge was massive and it had probably taken a great deal of effort for him to move (he wasn't in his prime anymore), but he probably hadn't been too weakened by it.

Hank whistled softly at the destruction below. "Oh my stars and garters."

"We're being painted," Kitty announced. Logan turned around and saw her at the tech station, adjusting knobs here and pushing buttons there, all at a rate that told Logan that she knew what she was doing. How, though, he wasn't sure. He knew that Kitty was tech savvy, but he'd assumed that all teenagers were. Obviously not. "Let's see," she continued, "we've got TraCon Doppler radar from Oakland and San Francisco International. But I'm getting some Q-band activity, high range, reads as an E2C Hawkeye AWACS off the _Teddy Roosevelt_, establishing a target portrait for possible air strikes."

Logan stared at her dumbly as Ororo tapped in a code on the center control console. "Going to stealth mode," she responded.

Well, _she_ didn't seem surprised. Perhaps she knew. Perhaps Ororo had trained her. Kitty's interest in Tony Stark suddenly didn't seem as simple as a fan girl obsession with his looks and money.

He snapped himself out of it. This wasn't the time to dwell things like that. Kitty had a skill that could be used to their advantage. That was all he needed to dwell on. "Everyone make sure you're strapped in," Logan warned, knowing that Ororo's evasive piloting could be… enthusiastic. "Hank – or Kitty – we're counting on you. This airspace is likely to get more than a little bit crowded and, since we can't be seen, we can't be evaded. Keep us from any collisions."

Logan was about to suggest that Ororo whip them up some cover, but thought better of it and kept silent. Any change in the weather would alert Magneto to their presence, and stealth mode prevented any humans from finding them. Doing any more would be counterproductive, especially since Magneto could probably sense the metal of the jet and Logan's skeleton.

Getting closer Logan saw that, while the troops had put up a valiant fight for a time, they were getting massacred now. None of them had weapons, so he could assume that Magneto had taken them out. Didn't matter, because none of the X-Men needed their weapons.

Ororo landed the jet flawlessly on the roof of Worthington Labs and shut the engine off. There was a thick pause after that, no one moving or breathing or even really thinking. But a rumble below them snapped them all out of it and they sprinted out of the jet. The scene below them was a cluster of blood and movement. Ororo's feet left the roof and a menacing strike of lighting hit the ground. Several other strikes followed the first and soon she had the battlefield divided between the humans and the mutants.

Without further delay, everyone jumped off the roof together. Logan had to use his claws to scrape his way down to the ground, but he allowed himself a small moment of pride in himself for not letting his fear of heights cause him to hesitate. The drop to the bottom hadn't been a short one.

As soon as his feet hit the ground, Logan took command. No amount of preparation could make a human army ready for these odds, and even the highest ranking soldier in sight looked more than a little overwhelmed. To their credit, they weren't backing down. That, however, was going to get them killed without a doubt. "Pull back your troops, lieutenant," Logan ordered, looking him dead in the eye.

The lieutenant looked around at the other uniformed mutants with a hesitant expression. Hank stepped up beside Logan and nodded. "Let the X-Men handle this," he added in a diplomatic tone. He didn't acknowledge Hank in any way, shape, or form. Logan doubted that it was from fear of his appearance, but rather the way he'd spoken. No authority. A soldier wasn't going to follow a request.

"Sir," the lieutenant swallowed hard, looking between the mutants on the bridge and his men, then back at Logan. "This is our post, sir. Six of you, _sixty-five_ of them? Those odds suck!" _There's a lot more than just sixty-five,_ Logan thought grimly. "We can help!" he insisted, picking up on Logan's hesitance.

There wasn't a whole lot they could do to help, but they weren't completely useless. "Fall back and tell your men to cover the doors." Logan held no place in the officer's chain of command, but the order and force of his tone was so natural that the lieutenant responded with a crisp salute and did as he was told

"Mind you," Hank mused to Logan by his side, "given those odds, he does have a point."

Logan snorted and looked out at the mutants waiting for Magneto's command. _Definitely_ more than sixty-five. They'd be at this all goddamn night unless Magneto lost his desire to bring down the human race. Or unless Phoenix got bored and put an end to it. Logan wasn't sure which scenario he preferred.

Shaking his head, he turned to address the X-Men. His teammates. "Side by side, everybody, get together," he shouted, "and _hold this line_! Whatever comes, we defend this place and the people in it at all costs!"

He caught each and every one of their gazes, looking for signs that they might turn tail and flee. While there was fear in all of their eyes, it wasn't crippling. That gave Logan hope that they could actually win.

Kitty nodded to him when he looked at her, an expression that was probably meant to tell him that he ought to worry about himself. They would be alright. He nodded back to her and sent a silent prayer to the heavens that that would be the case.

Logan glanced to his other side. Next to him was Hank, and Ororo was on Hank's other side. Staring right Logan. 'I love you,' she mouthed.

His anxiety doubled. Swallowing hard he could only nod to her and turn his head, putting all of his focus forward. None of the mutants looked too dangerous, but looks could be deceiving. He certainly recognized Magneto, Juggernaut, the tattooed mutant that had attacked Ororo…

John was also among them, looking impossibly fresh considering that Phoenix had nearly killed him the day before. Either John was much more resilient that Logan ever could've anticipated, or Phoenix had healed him somehow.

Honestly, both seemed likely.

And of course Phoenix stood tall among them, her long flaming-red hair billowing softly in the breeze. Her face looked carefully impassive, but it was apparent to Logan that there was a large buzz of energy around her. She hadn't acknowledged his presence, hadn't looked at him or even brushed at his mind since he'd gotten there. That led him to believe that the energy he felt around her might be a shield of some kind to block everything out. She'd mentioned that she knew every minute of every life of the people she was around, as well as millions of different ways to manipulate the structure of objects. Blocking all of that out to avoid being overwhelmed made sense.

Logan couldn't be sure, but if that was the case then he didn't want to be the one to break her out of her trance. Not yet.

Everything was still for a small eternity before Magneto shook his head and muttered something under his breath. He then shouted, "Finish them!"

The army stampeded forward and Hank let out a fearsome roar that made a few hesitate. The X-Men all dropped into their battle stances and Logan popped his claws out, cutting down a lamppost to advertise just how sharp they were. A few more hesitated, but the rest barreled forward and the fight began.

It was mostly hand to hand combat at first, but soon Bobby was slowing progress by creating ice walls and Kitty was phasing mutants into the ground or dragging them into solid objects and leaving them there.

He heard thunder echo in the distance and knew that Ororo had taken to the skies. He tried not to let that bother him.

_She can take care of herself_, he chanted as he cut down a mutant before she stabbed him with a stinger. He had to focus on doing his part. _She can take care of herself, she can take care of herself…

* * *

_

Soooo... I guess I've got some explaining to do…

I've had writer's block like you absolutely wouldn't believe for a few weeks. Like 'can't-even-come-up-with-a-title-for-the-chapter' writer's block. Then last week I figured out why – because of the chapter that comes after this one. It's a surprise, so I can't really tell you, but I needed to get my mind into that in order to write it the way I wanted it, and it was holding me back from this chapter. So I had to finish that one before I could finish this.

If any of that made sense, good for you. If not, here's what really matters: WE'RE BACK TO BI-WEEKLY UPDATES! I can't guarantee that the next chapter will be up by Friday, but by next Monday for sure. And after that it's back to Monday's and Thursday's. We're almost done!

I admire everyone who's stuck with this story, and thank you all as well. And thank you SuniGyrl for putting up with me. Best. Beta. EVER! !


	92. Titans

She wasn't sure why but, as she took to the air, Ororo suddenly remembered what Logan had said about being able to drown armies. She didn't want to actually drown them, knew she didn't have to. She knew that she _wouldn't_. She could use a flash flood to sweep a large quantity of Magneto's mutants into the water, and use the winds and water to push them to shore on the mainland. She could make the journey gentle enough not to kill anyone, but rough enough to tire them out. Hopefully by the time they made it to land they'd be too exhausted to attempt rejoining the fight.

The plan certainly had its appeal. The fewer adversaries her teammates had to deal with, the better. Especially, she hated to admit, for Hank and Logan. The three younger X-Men were likely to avoid killing any of their opponents at all costs. After all, that's how they'd been trained. But Hank and certainly Logan were a bit more primal than that. Ororo knew that they didn't delight in killing – far from it. But both mutants ran on instincts, and sometimes those instincts told them to kill or be killed. Hank would likely have more control over that bloodlust than Logan would, but that didn't mean that either of them couldn't be lost in a frenzy. Ororo wouldn't have that, especially for Logan. He had enough on his plate already.

Her vision brightened until she could see the skies as clearly as though it were daytime, a sign that her eyes had flared white. She gathered winds and power to her, pulling moisture from sea and air to generate a massive cloud formation. Thunder shook the rocky island and a series of almost electronic twangs sounded along the length of the bridge.

Ororo dropped a little lower in the air and focused wholly on what she was doing. She'd have to time everything perfectly if she wanted to maintain control. She had only a few seconds to ramp up the storm to a Category Five Hurricane, strike down the mutants with wind-driven rain, and sweep the mutants off the battlefield in a wave twice their height without killing them. She also had to keep the X-Men completely out of the line of fire and make sure that the weather didn't take on a life of its own before she could push it somewhere else.

She was lost in her thoughts, but acutely aware of her surrounding. Ororo sensed a shift in the air above her, but she was a moment too late. Cursing, she pushed hard with her powers to contain the storm she'd been building, costing her the split second needed to respond to the attack.

The weight of a body knocked the air out of her lungs as they both plummeted to the ground. It wasn't a fall that broke any bones, but Ororo was sure that she'd have deep bruising. _Wouldn't it be nice if that turned out to be the worst injury I receive tonight,_ she thought before she could stop herself. She shot air straight into her lungs upon impact, which allowed her to recover faster than the mutant that had attacked her. Ororo was on her feet in an instant, but so was _she_.

The mutant from Jean's house, the woman that had – more or less – kicked her ass. In Ororo's defense, she'd been preoccupied with trying to fend off the mutant as well as keeping tabs on Logan, Jean, and the professor. In any case, Ororo was in _no_ mood for this bullshit. She had more important things to worry about then a grudge match with a gang banger. Why she was interested in Ororo at all was a mystery, but she supposed that this woman just wasn't used to settling for a tie.

"No one gets away from Callisto," she said with a smug grin as she ran forward and punched Ororo square in the jaw. She used her super-speed well, going in for a hit, dancing back just out of reach, then returning for another hit. All too fast for Ororo to follow and before she could retaliate.

After about the third knee to the groin, Ororo was starting to get pissed. She increased the air pressure around her to slow Callisto and clothes-lined her, knocking her to the ground and placing a heavy boot on her chest. She wormed her way out from under Ororo with relative ease and trapped her in a headlock. Her grip was strong as iron, and Ororo wasn't sure she could escape without doing some serious damage.

She couldn't win this fight. Not the way she wanted to. The more she tried to shake Callisto off, the tighter she held on. The more Ororo tried to toss her away and focus her attention elsewhere, the more determined Callisto would become. She wouldn't give up.

Too bad. Ororo had been willing to let her live.

She grabbed Callisto's wrist and twisted with a clean snap. The woman screeched in surprise, anger, and pain, loosening her hold on Ororo's throat. Ororo bent her body in half and used the winds to throw the mutant off her shoulders and into a nearby power generator. She called thunder from the sky and electricity from the generator to her and unleashed it on Callisto, letting it rush through her body from top to bottom, electrocuting her thoroughly.

When she was satisfied that Callisto was dead she stopped and stared, her gaze hard. Once Ororo had decided to kill her, she'd done so without a moment's hesitation or a shred of mercy. She'd come of age in a war zone, in a place and at a time where girls were generally considered of no consequence, dead or alive. She'd had to learn to defend herself long before her mutant powers had fully manifested themselves.

She'd learned that killing was easy.

That's why she always strove to find a better way. But sometimes there wasn't a better way.

"You sound _just_ like him."

Ice wrapped around Ororo's heart at the sound of that voice. She hadn't heard it in almost an entire year, but she'd recognize it anywhere. If not for the fact that the sound had been inside her mind, Ororo wouldn't've heard the light chuckle in response to her reaction over the noise of battle all around her. She turned around and was faced with none other than Jean, observing Callisto with a lazy and mildly bored expression only a few feet away.

_Phoenix,_ she corrected. Jean wouldn't be standing there, watching dispassionately as mutants and humans alike lost their powers or even lives for no good reason at all.

Phoenix shrugged. "Not my fault," she said easily. She cleared her throat and changed her voice, a perfect mimicry of Magneto. " 'In chess, the pawns go first.' " She shook her head condescendingly and her voice returned to normal. "What he fails to see is that even pawns have value. Not that I'm going to be the one to tell him that. I don't mind letting him have his little moment."

As that comment sunk in, Ororo's anxiety spiked. Hadn't Logan said that they 'weren't walking the same path'? Magneto thought he was commanding this war, but Phoenix had it in her to be the true puppet master. If Magneto made a move, it was because she was _letting_ him do it.

That went for the X-Men as well.

She smiled darkly at Ororo. "Very good. _That_ is why the X-Men always come out on top, even when the odds are less than favorable. You look at the situation from every angle. You _see_ everything. Or try to. I can _truly_ see everything. I can see your _soul_ as surely as I can see you." She paused, giving Ororo a long look up and down. "You have it in you to see it too."

Ororo stood her ground, albeit hesitantly. Logan had more experience with her volatile personality than Ororo did. She wasn't sure what she should and shouldn't do in this type of situation to avoid igniting Phoenix's short temper. "I couldn't handle that much power," Ororo said cautiously. And honestly. Xavier had told her that omega level mutants had unimaginable power once they learned how to tap into it, but she'd never really wanted it. She had enough trouble handling her powers as it was, and the fact that they were linked to her emotions made them that much harder to control. If a temper tantrum in the Dark Cerebro chamber had nearly created a storm that could swallow a continent, what would happen if she threw a fit and had as much power as Phoenix had at her disposal?

Even now she was struggling to maintain control of the weather that was churning in response to her emotions. Remembering that Phoenix had killed the professor, had killed Scott, was burdening Logan with her problems… The weather was creeping towards her to defend her, and it was a wonder that a strike of lightning hadn't touched down yet.

Perhaps Ororo was only in control because Phoenix was keeping her that way.

_That_ was a terrifying thought.

"The potential is inside you to control all that power," Phoenix said casually, likely having heard her thoughts. "I see that too. You and I may have different powers, but we have the same abilities." She paused, frowning. "Perhaps that doesn't make sense to you. Let me put it to you another way; I'm telekinetic. You're atmokinetic. Both of us can move clouds, we just go about it in different ways. Both of us can make it rain, can move objects, can read minds. We don't do it in the same way, but the end result is _exactly_ the same. We can do _anything_ we want." Phoenix cocked her head to the side, frowning thoughtfully at Ororo. "Why _wouldn't_ you want that power?"

"Because I don't want to end up like you."

Phoenix threw her head back and laughed delightedly. "Like _me_? ! And what am I? Insane?"

_That too,_ Ororo thought, but out loud she said, "Alone."

The humor disappeared from her face in an instant. Perhaps she hadn't suspected Ororo to know that she was lonely, but wasn't it painfully obvious? Or was it only so to Ororo? If Phoenix thought herself so much better than these homo sapiens and homo superiors then why was she among them? She didn't want followers; she wanted company, despite how little she thought of them. That explained why she wanted someone around that was equal in power to her. None of them understood her, but apparently Ororo had the potential to.

"I don't have to be alone. Not anymore." Phoenix reached out and gently stroked Ororo's cheek. Her hand felt like fire, a stark contrast to Ororo's naturally cold skin. Her expression was welcoming, but not pleading. "I have _you_ now. We're just the same." She let her hand drop and her expression flattened. "I also have Victor. Then of course there's Lo – " She dodged a swift punch from Ororo and grinned evilly. " – gan," she finished.

"What about him," Ororo demanded, not bothering to disguise her possessiveness. In fact, she cracked her knuckles to advertise it. She wasn't sure why she suddenly felt so aggressive, and she really didn't care.

"He's…" Phoenix frowned. "… my friend." She didn't sound so sure, and twisted her mouth as though the word had left a strange taste behind. "I know what you're thinking. You have the right to, but don't worry your pretty little head. I have Victor for _that_. You can _have_ Logan."

"I already do," Ororo snapped.

Something that looked suspiciously like jealousy flashed through Phoenix's eyes, but she smothered it quickly, her voice as smooth as though she hadn't been interrupted. "Aren't we lucky that we were able to find two men that can handle being in the presence of such power?"

Ororo said nothing to that, only because she was suddenly struck with a thought: she could make this work. If she had the power to do _anything_, she could use all of her power to stop this foolishness. She could stop Magneto and his mutants, stop the troops that were likely being called to Alcatraz, put the Golden Gate Bridge back where it belonged. Maybe she couldn't bring about world peace, but stopping Magneto and demonstrating to humans that mutants didn't have to be feared was certainly a start. She could help in ways that no one would ever think possible.

Did it work like that? Could she have all of that power and use it for the good of others? That doubt crept in fast, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. Of _course_ she could. They would be _her_ powers, and she could use them to do whatever she damn well pleased.

But what about Phoenix? She made it seem as though everything she did was an attempt to fight boredom. Would Ororo be so 'bored' that she'd start doing crazy things too, or was that insanity specific to Phoenix because she'd been 'dead' for a year? Maybe if they had each other then they'd be okay. It seemed that what she wanted most was a companion, and while Ororo had no delusions of her rejoining the X-Men – especially if she had an interest in Logan's brother, Victor – at least she wouldn't go on a rampage and tear the world apart.

And if she did, Ororo would have the power to stop her. That burden would fall on her, _not_ Logan. She could be good enough for him, could give him one less reason to suffer. She knew that Logan loved Phoenix like a sister – Ororo did too, and would mourn her loss if she had to die. But how much more would Logan suffer if he had to be the one to kill Phoenix? He already felt responsible for Scott and the professor, and she didn't want him to add yet another life to that tally. He didn't deserve to suffer like that.

Phoenix grinned wider. "If it makes you feel better to think that you could take me out, I won't stop you," she chuckled. "Of course, you'll have to unlock that power before you can ever hope to go toe to toe with me. But yes, I suppose you _could_ take that weight off of Logan's shoulders. I think I'd rather have a girl friend anyway."

Ororo's eyes frosted over and her vision turned infra-red. She'd made her decision. "How do I do it?"

The red-head clapped delightedly. "It's easy; all you have to do is feel it. I know you feel the air around you, the pressure, humidity, what have you… You have to go farther than that. Feel the earth, the water, the earth _under_ the water. Feel the sun heating the clouds on the other side of the earth, or the lava churning hundreds of miles beneath us. **Feel **everything!"

Ororo took a deep breath and relaxed her mind, feeling the weightlessness of the clouds hundreds of feet above her. She let her powers seize control of them, swirling them around gently, experimentally. She let her mind travel outward, grabbing onto the clouds as she passed before moving on. It took little effort, and soon she felt heat in some places and moisture in others. The sun, she realized. Rain too. How was that possible?

"You're on the other side of the world," Phoenix cooed softly.

Ororo smiled a little. That fast? She pulled the moisture out of the clouds and it started raining. She fell with the rain, soaking the ground below. The water seeped underground, her essence with it. She felt the heat from the earth's core, hundreds of miles down. As strange as it seemed to her, the more she pushed to seize control of every weather-related phenomenon, the easier it got.

"_You're doing great,"_ Phoenix whispered inside her mind. As Ororo continued what she was doing, she felt small snaps of electricity buzzing around in Phoenix's mind. She seized control of that too, feeling the rhythm of the static until she realized that she was listening to her neurological activity.

She was reading Phoenix's thoughts! And there were _a lot_ to read. She was currently rifling through Ororo's recent memories, lingering for a moment on the details of Emma's outburst. _Too bad that she's pregnant_, Phoenix thought. _That poor little girl will never know her father._

And not because Phoenix had killed him. She hadn't.

Ororo's vision shifted and she was staring at Scott, _without_ his glasses on. His eyes glowed a dazzling ruby red, which soon faded into a chilling blue. So close, Ororo could see how haggard he looked; he hadn't shaved in days, hadn't slept or eaten properly in months. But he looked relieved, like a precious part of himself had finally been returned to him. He touched Phoenix's cheek hesitantly, possibly to convince himself that he wasn't dreaming. When he seemed satisfied that he wasn't staring at a phantom, he pulled her into a desperate kiss. He didn't know how else to thank her for coming back to him.

Ororo, through Phoenix, kissed him back gently, for lack of anything better to do. Phoenix didn't care much for his gratitude. Despite the fact that Scott felt whole again, she knew that he didn't really love her. She certainly didn't love him, nor did she even want him. She never had. The feelings that Jean had for Scott were as carefully crafted as his feelings for her had been. Phoenix had no feelings for him whatsoever.

Although, she had to admit to herself that he had been a good companion. Like a loyal puppy. But as far as making him love her, she was bored of the whole charade. It had been a way to get back at Emma, but now that she was free it seemed counterproductive to keep him trailing after her. She just had one last treat for Emma that would officially make them even.

Scott's skin began to ripple as Phoenix continued kissing him. She was not only sucking out a significant amount of energy from him, but she was also manipulating his memories. She wasn't erasing them completely, as that would likely kill him. She was just scrambling them, similarly to the way that Logan's memories had been scrambled. But Scott's mind wasn't quite as strong as Logan's, and Phoenix was twisting his memories quite a bit more. If Emma ever found Scott and wanted him back, she'd have to work hard for it, just as Phoenix had worked hard to rid herself of the cage she'd been put in.

Ororo shook the image away, relieved and enraged at the same time. Scott was alive somewhere! But why in God's name was Phoenix so vindictive? "You demon," she snarled.

Phoenix didn't seem to be even a little bothered by Ororo's change in mood. She was actually smiling at her. "You read my mind all by yourself," she said, bouncing excitedly. "I may have put my mind on display for you, but you can't get anything out of a book if you can't read. Or, so to speak. I told you that you had the power. _Take_ it, Storm! You can move heaven and earth! You were worshipped as a goddess because you _are_ a goddess!"

Ororo had never in her life believed that she was truly a goddess, or any sort of otherworldly creature other than a human with some strange abilities. But the way Phoenix said it… Why would Phoenix lie to her? She sounded so sincere. Was Ororo truly a goddess?

It would certainly explain why she felt so powerful. She had unconsciously continued to 'feel' around the earth with her powers while she'd been reading Phoenix's mind, and everything had been registering in the back of her mind. All of it rushed to the forefront at once. She knew what it felt like to control every nuance of weather in a specific area, be it a few hundred feet or even a few miles. She felt like she was in control of everything in that moment, but the 'specific area' happened to be the entire planet, perhaps even their solar system.

She felt the cool calm of the moon as well as the heat of the sun on the other side of the world. She felt wind rustling leaves in Europe, felt the whisper of movement from a butterfly flapping it's wings in South America, felt the rolling waves on the shores of Australia, and the subzero snow and ice in Antarctica.

Storm saw only blurs of color as her eyes slid shut and she basked in the beauty, the sensations so pleasurable that she didn't know what to do with herself. She felt an undiscovered organism twitch and stir up sand as it scuttled along in the deepest, darkest crevice of the ocean. She felt the pulse of molten heat churning in the center of the earth, not too unlike a heartbeat. She felt the ice on Pluto, the thunder on Jupiter, the oceans on Neptune.

"Delicious," Phoenix muttered, undoubtedly feeling and seeing what Storm was. "Indescribable. Try doing something. _Anything._"

She sounded excited, and Storm had to admit that she was too. Perhaps a bit too excited. What were the possibilities? She increased the wind under the butterfly's wings, causing it to soar higher. She rolled the waves back and forth and felt the sand begin to shift back and forth with the force. She relieved the pressure on the organism at the bottom of the ocean by one degree and it exploded.

She pouted in disappointment and felt a few drops of rain begin to fall. She realized that they were falling on her and she opened her eyes, noticing how blind she'd been moments ago. She could now see constantly changing energy patterns all around her in various colors and intensities. She could see the flow of kinetic, thermal, and electromagnetic energy. She saw the molecules that made up the rain drops that were falling on her.

She could also see Phoenix's soul, and noticed how close Phoenix was to her now. The taller woman was watching her intently, a strange look in her eyes. Storm read the neurological activity in her mind to see what she was thinking.

She wasn't upset that she'd had to manipulate Ororo a little in order to get Storm out. She'd planted one or two thoughts in her mind and Ororo hadn't for a second realized how dark and foreign her thoughts had been. After so many years of manipulating people from behind a barrier, this had been a piece of cake for Phoenix.

And as far as being considered insane and leaving a wake of destruction, Storm just didn't know what it was like. Not yet. Phoenix had so much raw energy within her, and if she didn't let it out then she would implode. Now Storm would know that feeling, know what it was like to _need_ to do _something_.

_How annoying,_ Storm thought with a frown. The wind around her increased, whistling its agreement. She felt every snap of electricity in Phoenix's mind and seized control of it. She crawled inside Phoenix's mind and used _her_ powers. A large rock lifted off the ground and Storm made it rotate in midair, examining it. It began shaking and shifting and it turned into a metal stake. She held it right under Phoenix's chin, chuckling when she smiled back at Storm. "I don't think I like being manipulated," Storm said in a disappointed voice.

Phoenix shrugged. "It won't happen again," she said casually. "You'll be able to tell, now that you're so powerful." She wasn't at all ashamed of what she'd done. She was happy to have another like her. Overjoyed. She'd been so bored, and she'd lived thousands of years through the memories of others. Now she had someone to share that power with, someone who would understand and wouldn't be overwhelmed. Even if they weren't very close, Storm could provide a little less boredom and even companionship.

Phoenix had thought maybe she'd find a companion in Magneto, but he was terribly annoying (everything was _always_ about Charles), and Victor was good for a quick fuck to relieve tension (but not much more), and of course there was Logan, who certainly had potential…

Storm stopped reading her mind, dropped the rock-turned-metal-stake she'd been holding in midair, and looked round, finding him almost immediately despite the chaos around them. Storm read the activity in his mind with relative ease too, despite how fast his thoughts were. He didn't have to actually think about the fighting he was doing; his body – working through back-brain and instinct and physical memory – was doing it for him. He reacted to the slightest cues, on levels more subtle than most hunting dogs, which allowed him to begin his counterattack at virtually the same time. Many of his adversaries thought that he was reading their minds, anticipating their every attack. They weren't that far off; reading body language was his own form of telepathy.

It was then that Storm realized that there was still a war waging around her. But no one was attacking either of the women. Why? She read a few minds and the general consensus was that they were all avoiding Phoenix, who had demonstrated that she wasn't someone to be messed with. Also, some were picking up on the danger that Storm was radiating.

"Beautiful, isn't he," Phoenix breathed, her attention still on Logan.

_That_ got Storm's attention to refocus on Phoenix. Storm's eyes snapped up to Phoenix's black ones and a strike of lightning from heaven touched down a few feet behind Storm, booming threateningly. Storm hadn't asked it to defend her, but she didn't mind. It was the one and only warning that Phoenix would receive. "He's _mine_," she said, her voice as calm and black as murder.

"Why can't he be _mine_," Phoenix asked with a smile, reaching her arm out to her left. Logan's feet lifted off the ground and he flew right at Phoenix as though he'd been thrown, landing on his feet in front of her. He looked disoriented and confused and, when he looked between Phoenix and Storm, a little afraid.

In a flash, Storm saw herself through his eyes. Her eyes, normally sapphire blue or a frosty white, were now a bright, electric blue. Licks of static were dancing across her face, and white lightning was playing in her hair, throwing her locks this way and that. He thought she was beautiful.

He also thought she was terrifying.

Phoenix wrapped an arm around his shoulder from behind, planting a kiss on his cheek. "Why don't you stay with me," she suggested to him, obviously hearing his thoughts as well. "She's like me now, but at least you know how to handle _my_ type of crazy."

_I've been handling __**her**__ crazy for a lot longer,_ he thought, perhaps before he remembered that they could still hear him. Phoenix and Storm both stared at him for a long moment before both burst into hysterical laughter. She couldn't be mad at him. he was right; he'd put up with her for over a year, had reveled in the highs and had learned how best to deal with the lowest lows. That type of history was just one more reason for him to trust her rather than Phoenix.

"There you go," Storm told Phoenix. "He still wants _me_. Now get your hands off of him."

A gust of wind jumped to her aid and pushed Logan out of Phoenix's grasp. Phoenix used her telekinesis to pull him back into her arms and only tightened her hold on him.

"Aw." She looked at him and huffed like an angry infant. "But we go so well together," she whined, batting her eyes at Storm. Her brain was suddenly a whirl of activity and Storm read every single thought so clearly that she saw images flashing behind her eyes. She saw Phoenix lying on her back on the table in the infirmary, writhing delightedly. Beneath _him_. She let out a throaty moan and he responded with a growl. She wrapped her legs around him in an iron grip to lock their bodies together and he trailed his lips down her jaw before sinking his teeth into her throat.

Storm let out a scream of rage that triggered a mild solar flare on the surface of the sun. A gust of wind threw Logan to the side and Storm shot herself right at Phoenix. The other woman took the force of her blow head on, sending them both flying back into solid rock. Phoenix grunted in pain and surprise before her fury took over. She grabbed Storm by the hair and threw her to the ground, her eyes blazing.

The wind lifted Storm off the ground, and Phoenix – who could fly by way of her telekinesis – floated level with her. Phoenix pivoted in the air until she was above Storm and brought her knee down hard on her spine. Storm increased the air pressure around her body exponentially, making it too dense for Phoenix to do any major damage. The force should've snapped her spine clean in half, but because of the pressure it only left a deep bruise.

The weather started fighting for her before she asked it to. The air heated and a snap of electricity ignited a flame. Wind and energy rushed to keep it alive and it flung itself at Phoenix, growing in size until it completely engulfed her.

Phoenix used a shield to keep the flames from touching her, doing so without much effort. Storm increased the pressure inside her shield until she was forced to collapse it, causing her to get burned. She yelped and smothered the flames, leaping through the air at Storm. A bolt of lightning streaked right in front of Phoenix, blinding her. Storm closed the distance between them, increasing the earth's gravity just around them. She began throwing punches, literally at the speed of light. Phoenix was able to feel and use the energy around her to 'see' where Storm's fists were headed, and of course she had the advantage of being able to read her mind. She dodged most of the punches, and returned those that she received.

Her vision was returning to her, but slowly. Storm saw that Phoenix could only see blurs of color and movement, and was gradually relying more on her eyes and less on her telepathy. Storm created a swirl of mist around her and bent the light just enough to make herself invisible. The weather jumped to her aid, creating static around her mind so that Phoenix wouldn't be able to read it. Static also formed in two separate clusters away from Storm, creating decoys so that Phoenix wouldn't know Storm apart from the weather.

Phoenix reached out with her mind, trying to penetrate the static around her. It was only confusing her, and Storm took the opportunity to rush in. The static did the same. Storm drew back and kicked Phoenix square in the chest, shattering her ribcage. The two clusters of static combined and threw themselves at her as well, electrocuting her.

Phoenix screamed in pain and fury and fell to the ground, writhing in agony. Her black eyes got blacker still and Storm felt her rooting around in _his_ mind, taking his knowledge of how to heal himself and applying it to her injuries. In a snap as sickening as the one that had broken her sternum, Phoenix's ribs popped back into place and were as good as new in an instant.

Her eyes appeared to have healed as well; she was glaring murderously at Storm. But a moment passed and Phoenix's mouth twitched up. Then again. She was smirking. Laughter began to bubble in Storm's throat as well. At first they only snickered a little, but soon they were caught up in a fit of giggles, and it wasn't long before they were both rolling on the ground, screaming like banshees in wild laughter.

Storm had to admit; that had been kind of fun. Phoenix obviously thought so, though she knew _why_ it had been fun. She hardly had to think to do something; she could will a tree to crumble to ash, look at the entire universe on a molecular level, manipulate time itself. But it wasn't challenging, because she was never met with resistance. Phoenix _liked_ that Storm had been able to catch her by surprise. It was interesting. It was unpredictable. It was _fun!_

Still gasping for air, Phoenix rolled over until she was straddling Storm. Her black eyes seemed infinitely less hostile, but they were shining unmistakably with insanity. Storm was in no position to judge, as she was sure that her eyes were a mirror expression. "Let's go again," Phoenix insisted, bouncing enthusiastically on top of Storm. "That was so much fun! _You're_ so much fun!"

"You're like a child," Storm said, tossing her off. Phoenix rolled off but pulled Storm with her until she was on top. They giggled again and began wrestling. By the time Storm managed to toss Phoenix off and get to her feet, Phoenix had begun glowing with the intensity of a star. Flames of pure energy, pulled from all across the universe, were stirring around her until it formed the shape of a phoenix. Storm felt herself glowing white hot in response, felt every snap of every volt in the galaxy coming to her in a rush. But she wasn't just calling the lightning to her. Subzero temperatures of the arctic came to her and the mountains of ice began to melt. The heat of Africa came to her and the plains began to freeze. Volcanoes erupted in an attempt to give her fire as well. The ground shifted everywhere, making the planet shudder. Just as Phoenix had become her namesake, Storm had become hers.

They unleashed their titanic power on each other, moving clouds in heaven and fanning flames in hell. Storm controlled the shape of the lightning around her, forming a bubble of static around her body like a shield as she charged at Phoenix. The other woman met her head on, using the flames of energy around her as her own shield. The force of the pure energy clashing together caused an earthquake under the ocean in the pacific. Storm felt the surface of Jupiter respond with a rumble of thunder that would've split the earth in two. Neither Storm nor Phoenix gave an inch, neither able to gain the upper hand and neither willing to back away.

Storm maneuvered herself and her shield below Phoenix and pushed up, sending them rocketing a mile into the sky. Phoenix pushed back, and they plummeted back down, shaking the entire island as their shields impacted the ground. The shockwave threw every human and mutant off their feet. The island was almost completely vacant, except for Phoenix, Storm, and the few unfortunate souls that weren't running fast enough.

And Logan. He was standing out of the line of fire, as much as possible, but he wasn't doing nothing. He was thinking, _hard_. So hard that he'd developed a powerful migraine in a matter of minutes. He was likely trying to get Phoenix's attention, and Storm felt a stab of jealousy at that. _"I can hear you too,"_ she told him, speaking right into his mind.

He started, frowning at Storm in confusion and fear. Then he turned his angry gaze to Phoenix. "What did you _do_ to her?" he snarled viciously.

The red-head shrugged. "I helped her become what she really is," she said, dusting herself off nonchalantly. "This power she now wields was laying dormant in the back of her mind, deep, where she couldn't reach it. Like me, separated from Jean and buried alive. I told her how to bring it to the surface and she did."

He shook his head, turning back to Storm, willing her to tell him that this was a bad dream. "We're only playing," Storm insisted. Wrong choice of words, as that only seemed to upset him more. His mind was in a frenzy. He was thinking that Phoenix _had_ to be lying to him. _Why would she __**do **__this,_ he wondered, anxiously trying to find an answer. _Fuck, where the hell has her mind been while Phoenix has been causing all this trouble?_

Three small tornadoes formed around Logan, locking him firmly in place. They inched closer to him, letting him feel their power. It was a threat; they were warning him not to upset her. But it was a threat that they wouldn't follow through with unless Storm gave the command.

Which she wouldn't. Perhaps she would've if it were anybody else, but not Logan. _Never _him. "Stop that," she told the tornadoes. They seemed to hesitate, creeping away only a little. Storm blinked and they vanished completely. She didn't like it when the weather thought it knew what was best for her. "_I'm_ in control," she whispered to the wind. It blew harder for an instant, but calmed after that. It had a mind of its own, but that just meant that Storm would have to concentrate to keep it under her control.

When she took a step forward, Logan visibly resisted the urge to take two steps back. Storm frowned. _"I'm not Phoenix,"_ she said softly, out loud and in his mind. _"And I'd never hurt you. It's __**me."**_

He breathed as evenly as he could. _You're Storm,_ he thought.

"_I'm no different than Ororo,"_ she countered. _"We're one and the same, like you and Wolverine. Perhaps I'm more powerful, but that's all."_

He took a hesitant step towards her, his mind a buzz of screaming instincts, all telling him that he needed to be far away from both Storm and Phoenix. But he was (only just) able to resist, because she still looked like his Ororo, still sounded like her. But there was something undeniably different, something he couldn't ignore.

Her scent.

Her distinct scent had always reminded him of a rainforest after a downpour. It had hit him hard when they'd first met, possibly his instincts trying to warn him that she was much more powerful and dangerous than she appeared. Whatever the reason for her forceful scent, it'd caused him to pay attention to her when he should've gone in the opposite direction. He'd gotten closer to her, had learned more about her, had fallen in love with her. But no matter what his feelings for her had been, her scent had always remained the same to him. Potent. Intoxicating.

But not anymore. Instead, he now smelled ozone, so powerful that it made his nose sting and his throat scratch. For that reason, he was reluctant to believe that she was the same woman.

Logan took a step away from her, then another. She was different now, just like Phoenix. He still loved her – she felt that and drew comfort from it. But he wanted to be cautious, because he didn't want to upset her. _She has to get a hold of herself_, he thought. _She has to see how all this power is affecting Phoenix. Her sanity will shatter if she doesn't find a way to ground herself._

Phoenix chuckled. "Nothing can evolve without a little chaos," she told him.

"Don't you _dare_ listen to her," Logan snapped at Storm, though his tone was pleading and tinged with a bit of hysteria.

"She is right, though," Storm pointed out. "Is chaos not how we evolved from apes into humans? And then from humans into mutants?"

"I'm not talking about genetically evolving," Logan said, his voice forcedly patient. "I'm talking about your mind. Your sanity! Even what little of it _you_ have left, Phoenix."

Phoenix frowned at him. "_That's_ insulting."

"He's right too. 'Man is made and unmade by himself; in the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself'," Storm recited softly.

"Yes, yes," Phoenix said, waving her hand impatiently. " 'As a Man Thinketh.' Let's emphasize the word 'man' and remember that, in this instance, James Allen was likely referring to humans, which we are not."

"He may not have specified mutants, but that doesn't mean that his statement doesn't apply to us." Phoenix and Storm turned to look at Logan, not surprised by his intellect, but rather waiting for him to go into detail. "You're more powerful that I could ever comprehend, maybe even more powerful than _you_ can comprehend. The universe will bend to your will. If you even dare to _think_ that you can't keep control, everything will fall apart. Your control is in your mind, Ororo. The power won't overwhelm you unless you let it."

"And what would you know, Logan," Phoenix snapped. "You talk as if you know what we're going through, but you have no earthly idea. Don't try preaching to _us_."

Storm looked between the two as they spoke, her gaze finally landing on Logan. "We… can't exist without order," she said slowly. She then turned to Phoenix. "But we can't survive without evolving. And we can't evolve without chaos…" She shook her head, looking away from both of them. This whole concept was confusing her, because both of them sounded like they were right. She knew she should listen to Phoenix, because Phoenix _knew_. But she _wanted_ to listen to Logan. "We can't… survive… without chaos?" The wind picked up and the platelets under the island began to shift, making the ground shake. What was the right answer?

"Please, Ororo. Stop!" He was no longer paying Phoenix any attention. Storm liked that, and the weather momentarily quieted in response to her mood change. _She_ wanted to be the center of his world, not _her_. "You already are," he said quietly, obviously having heard her somehow. "Maybe you always have been."

"How precious," Phoenix sneered.

Storm's eyes snapped to Phoenix and a gust of wind eagerly knocked the red-head off her feet. "Shut up, you _noisy_ harpy!"

Phoenix stomped her foot like a five year old. Worthington Labs caved in completely, crumbling to the ground and leaving little more than rubble, as though the place had never existed at all. "No! _Why _does he want you? Why not _me_?"

Storm blinked before smiling slowly. She knew how to _really_ shut Phoenix up. Storm closed her eyes and pictured all of her intimate moments with Logan. And there were _plenty_ to chose from. His appetite for her was insatiable – roughly, gently, horizontally, vertically… He'd taken her just about everywhere, in every way imaginable, and she'd done the same to him.

Phoenix snarled violently and Storm laughed delightedly in response, forcing out all of the air in Phoenix's lungs. She gasped, tried to use her powers to push air back into her lungs, but neither worked. She was at Storm's mercy, and the weather witch had little to give at the moment. She continued bombarding her with images of herself and Logan, showing her what she could never have. Phoenix coughed and sputtered for air, clawing at her neck despite the fact that she knew it wasn't to blame for her suffocation. She locked eyes with Storm, and she responded by increasing the air pressure around Phoenix's throat. It wasn't enough to cut off her entire supply of air, but it would probably knock her out if the other woman didn't loosen her hold soon. She raised Phoenix into the air and let her feet dangle a few feet off the ground, as though hanging her from a rope. "Emma took it," Storm said cruelly. "For years. Why can't you for only a few seconds? You don't even love him!"

Phoenix's eyes shined black as pitch. She gathered all of the raw energy around her and focused it into a point that was smaller than the tip of a pencil. For an aching moment, everything – them included – was completely still as that point of energy gently floated towards Storm. The instant that it caressed her nose, it exploded and Storm was hurtled back into the rubble of the building. As fate would have it – or, more likely, as Phoenix had intended it – the metal stake that Storm had created through Phoenix was positioned at just the right angle to punch a hole into Storm's back and straight through her chest. Storm gave a scream that dropped the temperature on Pluto by one degree.

She felt everything begin swirling in chaos. The arctic caught fire, the ocean completely submerged Africa, an earthquake split Asia in half, the moon drifted away from the planet… She couldn't breathe. The weather was trying to help her but it didn't know how, and it was starting to panic, ripping the world apart in a frantic attempt to find the answer.

The stake was sticking out of her chest a good three feet, and was too thick to not have done some serious damage. She could stop the flow of blood long enough to pull the stake out and try to heal herself the way Phoenix had, but the pain was making her dizzy and the chaotic weather was starting to make her panic too. She couldn't focus, couldn't think beyond the pain and the fact that she knew she was going to die.

But what would Logan do if she left him?

She turned to see him staring at her in numb shock. His mind was a blur of white noise as he tried to process exactly what he was seeing. He began walking towards her, shaking his head slowly. Then he was jogging. Then he was sprinting. He dropped at her side, tears springing from his eyes as he looked at her gaping wound. He popped his claws out and sliced the stake just above her skin. He was shaking violently as he helped Storm remove herself from the beam, even began crying harder when she screamed from the agony. She heard him chanting in his mind that this wasn't happening. _No, not to her. Not to her…_

But beneath his panic was the certainty that he could help. His blood could save her. But just as he went to cut his wrist, Phoenix stomped her foot again, screeching angrily at him. The ground shook and a pillar of solid rock shot up from the earth, sending him flying into the air and away from Storm. He knocked into Phoenix and roared at her, throwing a punch at her that broke her jaw. She screamed in pain and threw him into the air. He rose perhaps ten stories before Phoenix threw him back down, landing flat on his back. He couldn't even gather oxygen to cry out, nor could he black out because Phoenix was purposefully keeping him awake to endure the pain. His body slowly started to heal, but Phoenix reached into his mind and killed his X-gene, rendering him unable to heal.

He was dying. Slowly, but just as surely as Storm was.

"My patience with you has been wearing thin for a while," Phoenix told him. She turned to Storm and glared at her.

Storm didn't even meet her gaze. She held her own pain in check, ignoring the weather that was trying to destroy the planet. Storm took a deep breath and felt for him. Called for him. The pain he was in made her recoil immediately. His body was destroying him from the inside out.

"If I can't have him," Phoenix said, watching him writhe in agony with a sad expression, "why should you? What makes you so damn special?"

Storm's livid gaze snapped to Phoenix. _**She**_ was the reason he was dying! "You think you're _better_ than me?" Storm coughed again, swirling blood around in her mouth before spitting it out at Phoenix's feet. "You have the strength of a god and you _still_ can do _nothing_ to change the fact that he doesn't want anyone but _me!_ No amount of you flipping shit will ever change that! Whether you choose to believe that he actually loves me or not, you can't deny that he wants me in a way that he'll _never_ want you!"

The weather resumed its chaotic rampage and Phoenix ground her teeth in silent rage, thinking that she was in much the same position that Emma had been in; wanting something – just **one** thing – that she _couldn't_, with all her skill and power, have. She didn't necessarily want him the way that Storm did, but she wanted his attention, wanted him to focus on her.

Phoenix trembled with anger that made every single solid structure around them tremble and then crumble to ash. "Why are you trying to _leash_ him?" she snarled.

Storm laughed again, the sound not unlike Phoenix's maniacal laughter. Perhaps it was because she knew that she was going to die. She was trying to reach inside Logan's mind for his ability to heal, but Phoenix had destroyed it completely. She couldn't save herself or him. If both of them were going to die in this way, at least Phoenix would know that she hadn't gotten what she'd wanted. "I'm not leashing him! _That's_ the point! He refused you of his _own free will! !_"

Storm called lightning to her, and it came in a rush, eager to serve in any way it could. She pressurized the air around the lightning to make a solid beam of white hot light, just like the one she'd used to fight Betsy. She aimed it right at Phoenix and shot it clean through her. Phoenix did nothing to defend herself, didn't scream in anger or pain, didn't even look very surprised when she looked down and saw a gaping, bleeding wound that wasn't dissimilar from Storm's. The look of acceptance on Phoenix's face didn't bring Storm the satisfaction that she'd thought it would. Instead, she felt like she'd driven another stake into herself.

Was that the answer to everything? An eye for an eye? You've killed me so I'll kill you? "No!" Storm had killed her because she'd killed Logan. But perhaps that wasn't any better.

After the dazed look wore off, Phoenix's eyes were ablaze with fury that eclipsed hell itself. "Why does he love _you_?"

Storm shook her head, looking away. _I don't __**know,**_ she thought at Phoenix. _I don't care anymore. What does it matter? He's suffered enough and he deserves what he wants._ Or rather, he'd _deserved_ what he'd _wanted_. She hated to put it in the past tense, but it was clear that none of them were getting out of this alive, least of all him.

**"**_**WHY? ! ?"**_ Phoenix screamed. _"Tell me __**why! !**__"_

Storm's eyes clouded with a little white and she managed to force just a little air into her lungs, which were starting to collapse. "Knowing why… won't… change his mind," she gasped, locking her eyes with Phoenix. She wasn't intentionally trying to be cruel; it was the truth. If they had hundreds of years ahead of them, Phoenix would never have him.

"You're wrong," Phoenix growled quietly as her knees buckled and she crumbled to the ground. "He _could've_ loved me."

Storm turned to Logan, who was hanging on to life by sheer power of will. It didn't matter that he _could've_ loved her. He couldn't love _anyone_ if he was dead. Concentrating on Logan's heart, Storm gave it a quick zap. Then another, and another. She reached into his mind and fired off snaps of electricity that wouldn't've registered on the most sophisticated machines on the planet. She forced air in and out of his lungs at a steady rate, controlled the blood pumping in his veins. She was doing everything for him, and he was still dying.

Tears formed in her eyes. This wasn't fair. She'd spent so much time thinking that she wasn't good enough for him, and now that she knew that she was, he was snatched away from her! She loved him so much, enough to want him to be happy. But, she had to admit, she was selfish enough to want him to find that happiness with her. _Only_ her. He had for a while, but now it seemed like their time was up.

She looked back and Phoenix, who was pale and gasping for breath. She'd killed her, the reasoning behind it didn't change the fact that she had. She didn't like killing. She didn't _have_ to kill. With powers like hers, no one had to die at her hands.

She gathered the last of her strength and entered Phoenix's mind. Seizing control was much easier in her weakened state, though keeping her hold while her own strength was waning was proving difficult. She made sure that she was fully embedded in Phoenix's mind, merging their consciousness' into one. Jean's consciousness was on the verge of dying, and Phoenix wasn't far behind.

As hard as she could, Storm willed time to stop. She thought about slowing every molecule, every existing phenomenon that she and Phoenix could possibly have any control over. It took a while, but once she was sure that it had halted, she made it all move backwards. Phoenix awakened from her daze and began struggling viciously, physically and mentally fighting to kick Storm out of her mind. Storm kept at what she was doing, pushing as hard as she possibly could before her last breath. _No,_ Phoenix screeched, not understanding – or not caring – what Storm was doing. _"I __**won't**__ be buried again. You can't __**MAKE ME ! ! !"**_

Her senses heightened and she was suddenly _very_ aware of how much pain her body was experiencing, as well as Phoenix's and Logan's. She tried to calm herself when she realized that their bodies were healing, but pain like that was too intense for anyone – human or mutant – to withstand without dying from sensory overload. But, being an omega mutant, she was able to stay awake through it and feel everything.

Muscles ripped and healed and ripped again so that they were sitting correctly, bones shattered in order to heal better, and blood gushed out of all of them in torrents. But Storm bit her tongue to keep from screaming. Not that mattered, as she was screaming inside her mind and was probably projecting it to them. Phoenix and Logan too were screaming in pain and terror.

After a while – Storm wasn't sure how long – the sharp pain morphed into a dull agony and Storm finally loosened her hold on Phoenix's mind. Too upset and disoriented to realize how deeply embedded Storm was in her mind, Phoenix viciously ripped her conscious away and threw her out.

Electricity inside their mind fired in a frenzy, too powerful to be harmless. Storm's thoughts and memories seemed to explode. Her head pounded in mind bending pain. She felt like she'd been ripped inside out. She saw white around her, felt heat, heard noise.

She blinked away the light, trying to see. When she finally could see clearly again, she came to a realization.

She couldn't win this fight. Not the way she wanted to. The more she tried to shake Callisto off, the tighter she held on. The more Ororo tried to toss her away and focus her attention elsewhere, the more determined Callisto would become. She wouldn't give up.

Well, Ororo would just have to try a little harder.

She reached behind her with both hands and grabbed Callisto's ears, increasing the pressure in them. She also forced some of the oxygen out of her lungs, causing her to gasp and loosen her hold on Ororo's throat immediately. Ororo bent her body in half and used the winds to throw Callisto off her shoulders and into a nearby power generator. She called thunder from the sky and electricity from the generator to her and unleashed it on Callisto, letting it rush through her body from top to bottom. She controlled the voltage that coursed through her body, making sure that she'd be knocked out for a long while, and be unable to move right away if she did happen wake up soon.

When she was satisfied that Callisto wasn't getting up, she finally stopped and stared. Were the roles reversed, Callisto would've killed Ororo without a moment's hesitation or a shred of mercy. Ororo had given her both. She'd come of age in a war zone, in a place and at a time where girls were generally considered of no consequence, dead or alive. She'd had to learn to defend herself long before her mutant powers had fully manifested themselves.

She'd learned that killing was easy.

That's why she always strove to find a better way.

Ororo blinked, shaking her head. She suddenly felt a little bit dizzy. How had she taken Callisto down like that? Never before had she had such complete and effortless control over the lightning that she wielded. She'd only willed the lightning not to kill Callisto, and it had listened to her. She hadn't even really thought about it. She looked at her hands, which were starting to tremble. What the hell…

"_What did you do to me?"_ a voice snapped inside her mind. Ororo started, looking around wildly until her eyes settled on Jean. _Phoenix_, Ororo corrected. Jean wouldn't be standing there, watching dispassionately as mutants and humans alike lost their powers or even lives for no good reason at all.

Ororo suddenly felt like she'd thought that before. Phoenix visibly tensed from her spot beside Magneto on the bridge. _"__**What **__did you __**do**__ to me? !"_ she snarled again.

Ororo resisted the urge to snarl back, mentally or out loud. Perhaps Phoenix held a special place in Logan's heart, but Ororo could never forgive her for killing Scott and Charles.

Phoenix stared at her for a long moment before finally looking away. _"What do you mean, 'a special place in his heart'?"_

Ororo followed her gaze and saw that she was now staring at Logan. Part of her wanted to cave in on herself and admit that maybe Logan really _was_ in love with Phoenix. Why shouldn't he be?

But another – much stronger – part of herself knew that was a lie. He loved her, but he wasn't _in love_ with her. He'd told her so himself. He was in love with Ororo, and he would _stay_ in love with her. She didn't even have to second guess herself, though the self confidence she was feeling was a bit foreign to her. But it felt good. She felt as self assured as he looked at the moment.

He looked like he didn't have to actually think about the fighting he was doing. Logan looked like he was on autopilot; reacting to the slightest cues, on levels more subtle than most hunting dogs, which allowed him to begin his counterattack at virtually the same time. He was reading their body language, which was his own form of telepathy. Now she knew why he always seemed to know what she was thinking.

She shook her head. There was that damn déjà vu again. _For some reason that I'm still struggling to comprehend,_ Ororo thought at Phoenix, _he still believes that he can help you and Jean._

"_And what do you think?"_

Honestly? She wasn't sure. If Logan could really find a way to help her and return her to normal, would Ororo be able to forgive her? Not right away. It would take a long time to forgive her, even longer before she'd be willing to trust her again. Ororo wasn't sure why, but she felt like Phoenix had done much more than just kill her two best friends.

Her gaze lingered on Logan for a moment longer before she finally turned back to Phoenix. _I think that it has to be him._

For some unfathomable reason, Logan knew Phoenix. If he believed he could save her, then Ororo did too. Her insides turned into ice when she thought about what might happen if she tried to interfere with Phoenix. Ororo saw flashes of fire, lightning, and blood streaking across her vision. Somehow she knew that Phoenix saw it too, though neither was sure of what it meant. She only had those images to go on, but the feeling that went with those images was death.

Even from so far away, Ororo saw Phoenix shiver a little. _"It has to be him,"_ Phoenix repeated with conviction in her voice. _"It __**has**__ to."_

A mutant with the power of invisibility snuck up on Ororo from behind her, breaking her concentration. She let off a series of gentle snaps of electricity inside the mutant's mind and just like that he fell to the ground visible, naked, and unconscious. Phoenix had turned her attention back to the battle and Ororo decided to do the same. She fell in line with her teammates, pushing away the strange feeling of déjà vu. She was exactly where she belonged, and that was good enough for her.

* * *

So this is my longest chapter to date (over twenty pages!) and possibly the longest chapter period. I let my creativity get the better of me and once I got this idea I ran with it. And kept on running. I think I just wanted to put a rest to the 'what if' inside my mind, and now we know why Phoenix just sat there and stared off into space for the better part of the entire battle, and why Ororo never tried to step up to the plate. Hope you liked it! And thank you to SuniGyrl for helping me with the particulars of this chapter. I'd be lost without you! !

^.^


	93. Deja Vu

Well, I know I said that I'd be updating twice a week again, but I hadn't realized how heavily I'd been relying on having an entire week to polish the chapters over. I've clocked in a solid five or six hours on this chapter in the past two days! I'm going to try my hardest to stick to my Monday/Thursday updates, but some of them might end up being Tuesday/Friday. So I'm NOT QUITTING, especially when we're so close to the end (I'm thinking maybe four or five more chapters). But I will admit that I have a habit of waiting until the last possible moment to get things done. Terrible habit. Maybe my penname ought to be 'i'm a procrastinator'…

Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

He heard thunder echo in the distance and knew that Ororo had taken to the skies. He tried not to let that bother him.

_She can take care of herself,_ he chanted as he cut down a mutant before she stabbed him with a stinger. He had to focus on doing his part. _She can take care of herself, she can take care of herself…_

Logan continued his mantra while he fought, using mostly his instincts to aid him. Every so often, when he was guaranteed a spare second, he checked up on the progress of the other X-Men, and was pleasantly surprised, especially by his younger teammates.

A mutant the size of a boulder was barreling towards Bobby, who coated the ground with a sheet of ice. The mutant was too massive and instead of upending him, the ice merely shattered underfoot. Fortunately, he was no speed demon and Bobby had little trouble ducking and dodging his grabs. But Logan knew that couldn't last forever. There wasn't a whole lot of wiggle room and the fight around them was delving into a madcap melee. None of the X-Men could afford to devote themselves to a single adversary for too long, for fear of becoming vulnerable to someone else.

Desperation, it seemed, produced inspiration; instead of a sheet of ice, Bobby chose to form a pillar of ice around the mutant to lock him in place. This way, except perhaps by tripping, the mutant couldn't bring his weight effectively to bear.

Peter was there in an instant, landing a single punch to the mutant's jaw that broke the foot-thick ice encasement as if it were nothing, and _still_ connected with enough power to shatter the mutant's consciousness before he hit the ground. The Russian turned at once to aid Kitty, who didn't really need it.

This mutant was wielding a large axe with precise and deadly accuracy, but she slashed her blade though Kitty's body without doing her the slightest harm. Kitty bobbed and weaved effortlessly, backpedaling until she came within Peter's reach.

A single backhand, not even full force, knocked the woman back twenty feet and out of the fight. Three more took her place, surrounding Kitty. Always accepting of a challenge, she went solid for them, spinning side kicks to the face. The blows were backed by the strength of a dancer's leg, bouncing from one guy to the next, shaking both up enough for her to complete the pivot and punch the third in the belly, dropping him at last with a knee to the nose.

The others made uncoordinated grabs for her but she stepped right through them and turned solid from behind to give them her version of the Vulcan neck pinch. Everyone was down but breathing, all before Bobby or Peter could step in to offer her any assistance. There were a couple of quick glances from side to side between the teens and the briefest exchange of smiles back to Logan. He didn't smile back, but nodded to acknowledge that they were doing well.

Satisfied with them, Logan gave the lieutenant a signal and the human came forward, staying as far from the opposing mutants as possible. But he wasn't afraid to elbow a woman in the face that tried to spit poison at him. Logan nodded his approval as he addressed the lieutenant. "You want to help? Start taking these mutants into custody."

"Yes sir," he shouted back without hesitation, turning around and shouting various commands at his men.

Logan turned his attention forward again, glancing discreetly between Ororo and Hank. She was holding her own – which was all that really mattered – but her mind seemed to be elsewhere. And Hank was, much to Logan's surprise, kicking ass and taking names. They were winning, slowly but surely. No one had died yet. No one _would_ die.

Logan blinked, suddenly feeling dizzy. He felt, for a split second, as though every bone in his body had been broken, like he'd been thrown at a mountain. _Through _a mountain. He blinked again and the sensation was gone. Just like that. What the _hell_…

Panic seized Logan's heart and he sought out Phoenix immediately. She was staring off into space, rubbing absently at her stomach. He wasn't sure why, but that made him even more nervous. _Are you okay,_ he thought at her, wondering if she could hear him. The fact that she stiffened and stopped rubbing her stomach suggested that she had heard him. She seemed to be fine, at least on the outside, and Logan sighed with relief. He couldn't explain why something might be… _wrong_ with her, but he was relieved nonetheless. But she still hadn't answered him, and that made him slightly less relieved.

_"__I'm fine,"_ she replied shortly, not even looking at him. He found that odd, as she usually seemed to want his attention. Her voice was downright nasty as she snapped, _"Why don't you worry less about me and more about the unstoppable mass headed your way."_

Juggernaut.

Logan popped his claws out, only to realize he was at the wrong end of the yard, with too many bodies to fight between himself and Juggernaut. The burly mutant dropped his head, angling his torso forward as best he could so that his conical helmet appeared a bit like a massive cannon shell. The sloping roadway allowed him to build up a decent amount of speed, and Logan was sure that nothing ahead of Juggernaut would slow him down, much less bring him to a halt. He'd built up enough momentum to barrel through at least twenty soldiers and a two-inch thick garage door without meeting any resistance.

_Shit. Shit! SHIT!_

"He's going for the boy!" Hank shouted, completely surrounded and too busy to offer any assistance.

**SHIT! !**

"Not if I get there first!" Kitty shouted back, already running towards the building after Juggernaut.

**"****Kitty!"** Logan shouted after her. She'd probably heard him, but there was no stopping her. She was every bit as reckless as Logan and every bit as unstoppable as Juggernaut – only she was a lot less messy about it.

She'd already disappeared into the building. There was nothing he could do.

_She can take care of herself,_ he chanted. Hadn't he watched her take down three mutants in less than twenty seconds? Someone _had_ to stop Juggernaut from killing the boy and, if it was going to be any of them, at least it was Kitty.

He returned his attention to the fight ahead.

A blur of blue streaked across his vision and Logan watched as the fuzzy X-Man bobbed and weaved, leapt and twisted, with seemingly aimless abandon, staying out of reach of a mutant with extendable arms. He bounded from wall to pillar to post until he had the mutant all tangled up with himself.

Logan was awestruck for only a moment before he became preoccupied with a multi-limbed mutant whose body was covered in a protective carapace that gave him some of the aspects of a lobster. He had a weapon on every hand and the muscles to make a single blow lethal. Near misses shattered concrete and bent steel and the number of appendages took away the advantage of Logan's speed. He could dodge one or two limbs, but not all of them. Fortunately, his unbreakable skeleton kept him from serious harm. _Un_fortunately, he was still vulnerable to strikes against the unprotected portions of his anatomy, and was taking some heavy blows.

But that wasn't necessarily the worst of it. Logan used his claws to lop off an arm, and though there was minimal blood, the mutant redoubled his efforts with the limbs that remained. He held the severed limb above his head, a bud appearing at the base and regenerating at such an accelerated speed that it was fully functional well before it regained its original size. Hank was sparing him plenty of glances, possibly wondering if he needed any help or maybe worrying that he'd simply kill the mutant.

Perhaps it would fit the Wolverine's reputation, but Logan was bound and determined to kill as little as possible tonight. He was, however, done playing around and – not without his own brand of rough humor – he hauled off and kicked his adversary soundly between the legs. The mutant went to his knees, gasping and face purple with shock. All hands moved reflexively to his crotch, none left to protect his jaw from the follow-up punch that Logan delivered to end their engagement.

"Well," Hank muttered, "that's one way to do it."

"You're one to talk," Logan snarked. "I thought you were a diplomat."

"Churchill, my friend," Hank returned, throwing himself back into the fray.

Though, there wasn't much of a fray left to throw himself into. The battle was rushing to its end, and Magneto's side was losing. Quite badly. Magneto was visibly unhappy about the turn of events, and responded characteristically.

Cars from the bridge shuddered, then levitated and hurtled themselves through the air. Cackling delightedly, John covered both of his hands in flames and began shooting jets of fire at the cars, igniting the gas tanks as he shouted, _"Incoming!"_

The sight was eerily beautiful, like watching falling stars. But Logan knew better than to stop and stare. "Take cover!" he shouted. The soldiers and surviving mutants didn't need to be told twice.

Magneto launched half a dozen more cars, and John detonated them in a random and staggered order; one high in the air as a distraction, some much closer to spray the scene with incandescent shrapnel and flaming gasoline, and the remainder as ground bursts. One impact and explosion chopped the base out from under a guard tower, toppling the three-story structure and forcing a number of troops out into the open where they could be bombarded with white hot metal and living fire.

More cars lead to more fire, and John ran streamers from one blaze to the next, building a fence across the battlefield that allowed no one to escape, gradually building the intensity to the point where it could explode into a firestorm capable of incinerating the island. Anyone not incinerated outright would suffocate as the great fire sucked all the oxygen away from ground level.

Logan ducked behind a car and looked around for the other X-Men. They were all spread out, huddled behind various objects for cover. Kitty hadn't yet returned, but Logan tried not to let that worry him.

Ororo dropped beside him behind the car he was hiding against and offered him a humorless smirk. "They picked a perfect time to quit being divas," he muttered. "This looks familiar."

"In some ways," she replied. She craned her neck to look over the burning hood of the car and her face got paler. "In others…" She swallowed hard. "He's creating a fire dome over the island high enough to deal with any rain I can bring to bear. And Magneto is using a magnetic field that cripples my control over the weather." She shook her head, her eyes hallow as she continued watching Magneto and John work as a team. "I can't manifest a storm powerful enough to do us any good."

Logan wasn't sure he believed that, but what he _did_ believe was that perhaps she'd lost the will to try. And why not? She was watching the boy she loved destroy cars and buildings and _lives_ with a smile on his face. She looked emotionally exhausted, and hardly seemed to care when a large piece of shrapnel flew by her eyes, nearly splitting her skull.

Logan yanked her down, ready to tear into her for being so careless. What the hell was wrong with her? He opened his mouth, but her eyes met his and his voice died in his throat.

The pain and desperation and shock in her eyes stole the air right out of his lungs. This was pulling her down, and she was too tired to put up a fight. Logan would've given anything to know what she was thinking right at that moment. Did she think that she'd failed him? Was she thinking that she _always_ failed? Perhaps she was looking back on so many things that she might've done differently with him that might've brought about a more desirable outcome for him. Logan growled in frustration. Sometimes he could read her like an open book but, when it really counted, it was like the book had been written in an alien language.

_She has to get a hold of herself,_ he thought. _Her sanity will shatter if she doesn't find a way to ground herself._

Logan blinked away sensation of déjà vu he felt and touched her shoulder softly. "This isn't your fault," he told her firmly. "You can't blame yourself for this."

She didn't look at him. She blinked, frowning as she sat up higher to watch John again. "I don't think I do," she said finally, her voice tired, defeated. "He had a mind of his own when I found him. I could preach to him about ethics until the end of the world, but I can't make him listen if he doesn't want to. That's… not my fault."

So why did she look so lost? Did she, perhaps, _want_ to blame herself? That could make sense; it would be so much easier to hate herself then it would be to hate him.

Logan shook those thoughts away for a moment. John was undeniably more powerful, as evidenced by his attack on Phoenix and the fact that he hadn't died immediately. He didn't seem to be at full power, as Logan could see him breathing heavily and shaking a little even from so far away. Phoenix had likely healed him before they'd come to the island, but she hadn't made him as good as knew.

How could they use that to their advantage?

His eyes landed on a cracked Cure cartridge and he stared at it for a full twenty seconds. "Okay," he said, shuffling the elements of his plan together like a deck of cards. He had to think fast, and deal out orders faster. "They're working as a team, we'll work better."

He nodded to the Cure cartridges and Ororo picked up the cue as if they were both telepaths. "Best defense is a good offence."

Logan smirked and turned to the teen huddled behind a nearby car. If anything was sure to get John's full attention, it was a challenge. And what could be a more fun challenge for someone like him then testing the power of fire against the power of ice?

"Bobby! You think you can take out your old friend?"

Bobby gave John a long, hard look before finally turning to Logan and nodding silently. Logan didn't miss the sudden spark in his eye that suggested that he and John had some unfinished business that was about to be settled right now. He all but sprinted out from his cover just as another flaming car was headed straight for him. Bobby threw his arms out in front of him and a whoosh of ice extinguished the flames before they had a chance to get properly burning. The car was quickly coated, made so cold that when it crashed to the ground it shattered to bits, its metal components instantly as brittle as dry twigs.

Everything was silent for about five seconds before Logan heard Magneto mutter to John, "Go ahead. Are you a god, or are you an insect?"

John cracked his knuckles with a vicious smile and began walking towards Bobby. Silently praying that he hadn't sent the young man off to his death, Logan turned to Ororo, who was anxiously watching John's every move.

"Storm," he said, then frowned at her. She didn't respond at all. Something was wrong with her but Logan couldn't, for the life of him, figure out what. It had to be more than just John, because her soul was _screaming_ behind her eyes.

Logan tugged off his glove and laid his hand gently on her cheek, his thumb lightly stroking just beneath her eye. The gesture was so light that he hardly felt it, but it still sent a surge of electricity the entire length of his spine, straight to the core of his being.

"Ororo," he said in a softer tone. Her eyes snapped to him and she frowned at him in confusion, grabbing his hand and pulling it down past her jaw, past her shoulders, below her breasts… She stopped his hand a few inches above her navel, her eyes wide with shock. Logan didn't know why, but he didn't care either. He was suddenly seized with panic so intense that he could hardly see straight as he fumbled for the zipper at the top of her uniform and yanked it down.

He examined the entirety of her stomach, careful not to expose her as he checked every last inch of her skin for any sign of… _something._ He didn't know what he was looking for, but he was relieved when he didn't find it. He caught flashes of red every now and then behind his eyes, but her unmarred flesh returned every time he blinked the color away. His nerves were badly frayed – and he still had no idea why – but all that really mattered was that she was okay. He zipped her suit back up and stared into her eyes.

Her expression matched his; a strong mixture of relief and confusion. But she also looked terrified. Her eyes darted around frantically, as though she wasn't sure of where she was or why she was there or _how_ she'd gotten there. Logan stopped thinking as he pulled her into a kiss. It was partly to assure himself that she was real, but also to give her strength. He wanted her to use him as an anchor, because it was blatantly obvious that she was navigating rough seas. He was too; he had no idea what the hell was going on with his head, and he wasn't ashamed to admit that it was scaring him too. But knowing that Ororo was unharmed and with him and _real…_ That gave him all the strength he could ever need.

She whimpered into his mouth and tried half-heartedly to pull away from him. He pressed into her insistently, willing her to draw strength from him. He wasn't sure when it had happened to her, but it seemed that her will to survive had depleted. If she only kept herself alive because Logan wanted her to, that would be enough for now. But he _needed_ her to know that. He could probably survive without her, but he knew that he couldn't _live_ without her.

He pulled back after a moment and looked right into her eyes, willing her to understand that he needed her to snap out of it. She looked a little more in control of herself and Logan, in contrast, was shaking and tripping over his words. He'd momentarily forgotten what he'd wanted to say to her before he'd felt like he needed to check her for a fatal injury that she so obviously didn't have. "We're going to need some cover," he told her gently.

She blinked blankly at him before her eyes finally danced back at his, accepting the challenge. "Right," she said, blinking hard again to clear her mind before opening them again and looking skyward. Her eyes became white and fog materialized out of nowhere all around them, making it hard for Logan to see more than a few feet in front of him. The faintest hint of ozone floated into his lungs, but he paid it no attention as he turned his eyes to John and Bobby.

John's pillar of fire was meeting Bobby's stream of ice head on, but it appeared that John was slowly gaining the upper hand. "Don't you get it," he shouted to Bobby. "While Xavier kept going on and on about sharing, the so-called human race was turning Earth into a cesspool. They're so busy ruining their present, not giving a thought to the future. They don't give a good goddamn about future generations, but that's where _we_ come in. We're going to make sure that we have a decent home to inherit. If that means evicting the current tenants, then so be it."

During his speech, John had advanced on Bobby and forced him to his knees, nearly engulfing him in flames, just as Phoenix had done to him. Logan recognized the signs; John was toying with him, drawing out the suspense and having the time of his life with it.

"You're in _way _over your head, Bobby," John told him, shaking his head in disappointment. "Maybe you should go back to school."

Bobby shook his head stubbornly, his breath somehow coming out in puffs of cold air. "You were always too much in love with your own mouth, Johnny. Too damn busy being _you_ to pay attention to basic science."

Bobby's gloves shattered to splinters, as if they'd just been plunged into liquid nitrogen, revealing perfectly formed ice fingers underneath. The ice traveled up his arms and all over his body, coating his uniform with ice as well until Bobby was indeed his namesake: an ice man.

He grasped John's wrists and the flames ceased immediately, his hands turning blue from the cold. " – the **FUCK**," he cried in outrage.

"Entropy," Bobby explained. "Even molecules get tired, Pyro. They slow down, they get _cold_. The default state of the universe isn't fire, it's _ice_. Maybe you should've never _left_ school."

He head-butted John square in the jaw, knocking him out. He no longer had control of the firestorm he'd created, but because the blaze had been so unimaginably fierce to begin with, it had consumed all the readily available fuel. Only John's power had kept it burning, and there was a pop of imploding air as the flames vanished and cooler atmosphere rushed in.

Ororo gasped next to Logan, about to crawl to her feet to go to John. Logan placed a hand on her knee to steady her. "You know Bobby will take care of him," Logan said quietly.

She ground her teeth, her eyes never leaving John's still form. "Yeah, I know."

Logan tilted her head until she was looking at him. "Keep this fog thick," he told her, nodding his head in John's direction. He knew she could do two things at once. "You'll know when it's over."

She blinked, perhaps not understanding that Logan was telling her to go to John. When recognition finally dawned in her eyes, she pressed a quick, heartfelt kiss to his lips and stayed low to the ground as she went over to John.

The fog looked like it was thick enough for their purpose, and Logan got out from his cover and silently motioned for Peter and Hank to come nearer. Handing Hank the cartridges, he pointed to Magneto's advancing silhouette. "He'll feel me, so I have to be the decoy. You better be fast, Hank, because I doubt he feels like playing around."

Hank nodded and Logan turned to Peter. "This is it. We only get one shot."

"You want me to throw you," Peter clarified, grabbing onto Logan's belt.

"Yeah, and make it a strike

The Russian made it a bullet, and right on the mark. Logan braced himself for the pain that Magneto was sure to put him through, and hoped that Hank would be fast about sneaking up on him. Not sloppy, but fast enough that Magneto didn't rip Logan limb from limb. He got the feeling that the Master of Magnetism was getting tired of seeing him.

Sure enough, without even pausing in his strides, Magneto raised a hand and used successive waves of magnetic force to stop Logan in midair and punch him into the ground, more than hard enough to make an impression.

Magneto didn't bother being gentle. He flipped Logan onto his back and began trying to manipulate and pull apart the metal in his bones from the inside out. Logan didn't bother holding back a scream of pure agony, knowing that the sound would overlap any sound that Hank was making, which would allow him to hurry the fuck up.

"You _never_ learn, do you," Magneto chided condescendingly, making it abundantly clear that they would dance this particular dance again.

Logan _finally_ caught Hank's scent in the air and nearly sobbed with relief. "Actually," he managed to gasp, "I do."

Too late, Magneto seemed to sense the other presence and tried to retaliate. But Hank was too fast, and didn't hesitate to drop down right behind Magneto and stab at least six cure needles into his chest.

He began shaking violently as he stared down at the needles sticking out of him. His breathing became labored and he sank to his knees, then rolled onto his back, writing in agony.

Logan felt Magneto's hold on him ebb away until it was gone completely, all sense of pressure and pain faded. He rose to one knee, staring Magneto directly in the eye. His right fist was close enough – it would be no effort at all to put an end to him once and for all. Some adversaries, perhaps, ought _not_ to be spared. But the scent of copper slowly faded into the air, replaced by a smell that wasn't unlike bleach, and Logan lost the desire to kill Magneto.

Perhaps there had been a time that Logan would've done just that, without a second thought or an ounce of regret. But those days were behind him, and he didn't mind in the least. He much preferred the man he was becoming and the way he was starting to live his life.

Dazed with horror, Magneto groped for his helmet, only to have it fall from fingers suddenly gone numb. Watching him, it was clear that the true kindness would indeed be a quick, clean death. Logan wasn't sure he deserved that. He ought to suffer for the harm he'd caused, and what worse way was there for Magneto to suffer than to be forced to live amongst humans, as their _equal_.

He stared right back at Logan, shaking his head in disbelief. "I'm – " He shook his head again, unable to go any further.

Logan nodded. "One of _them_?" He stood, towering over Magneto and letting that thought sink in. He had become what he so despised, had become the 'lesser species' that he'd fought so hard against.

Magneto was shaking terribly, as though from a seizure or hypothermia. Or raw fury. He turned to look up at Phoenix, as though he was determined to say his last words before he died. Perhaps for Magneto, being stripped of his powers was just a different way of dying. "_This_ is what they want for all of us," he said, his voice barely a whisper. Logan didn't doubt, however, that his thoughts were ringing out like a clarion call. "Look at me, Jean. Look into their hearts. Look what they've _done_ to me! !"

He rolled onto his back and pulled the cure needles out of his chest, but Logan ignored him, shaking his head at Phoenix. She could see inside his mind, and she had to see that stripping her and the rest of mutant-kind of their powers was absolutely _not_ what they wanted. She cocked her head to the side, her expression much less ruthless than it had been the last time Logan had looked at her.

She let out a long, heavy breath as she stared at Logan. "It's over, Jean," he told her, not sure of who he was talking to at the moment. She nodded slowly, still looking a bit confused but her eyes never leaving his. Logan sighed in relief. No matter who was in control, she seemed willing to listen. "It's over," he repeated.

She shook her head slowly. _"It's never __**really **__over, Logan,"_ she said, her voice calm. _"Now you have to decide what you want to do with me."_

_It's not up to me,_ he told her immediately._ You're a person, and you need to make your own decision. But I __**want **__to help you. Just tell me how!_

She blinked slowly as she took a step closer to him, her dark eyes slowly fading to the green that Logan felt like he hadn't seen in a lifetime. _"Okay," _she said softly. _"I… I need…"_

Her eyes got wide and she froze as shouts erupted in the air. A wave of soldiers appeared from the bridge, aiming their guns and tanks and shouting for everyone to get on the ground, to stop moving, to put their hands where they could be seen…

_"__NO!"_ Logan screeched, hearing Hank do the same. _**"DON'T SHOOT!"**_

Screams of 'don't shoot' and 'put down your weapons' filled the air, both from the X-Men and the soldiers that had been aiding them. But the reinforcements didn't back down, and even began aiming at their fellow soldiers in blatant distrust.

Logan shook his head. This couldn't be happening. _NO! ! God__**damn it!**__ I did __**not**__ come this far to __**FAIL! ! !**_

Phoenix took a deep breath, her eyes growing darker. _"Put those weapons down,"_ she warned. _"Leave me __**alone.**__"_

They opened fire.


	94. Up That Hill

Okay, so here's another (late) chapter. I started a new job on Sunday and I've sort of been out of sorts since then, waking up at 1:45 AM to get ready to go to work… Not that you'd care, just felt like sharing. And all you hear is 'excuses, excuses…'

Thank you to SuniGyrl for being an awesome beta and totally there when I need you, and enjoy the chapter everyone!

* * *

Phoenix stood ramrod straight, an unmoving target to the soldiers that were firing at her. Every Cure needle halted about two feet away from her, her rage building with every second that they continued shooting at her.

A long, deathly quiet moment followed after they'd ceased fire. Logan didn't even dare to hope that she wouldn't retaliate. He'd lost all hope the instant they'd fired. Still, it broke his heart to watch her finally, truly snap.

The needles began to tremble in midair and Phoenix pierced Logan's mind with a shriek of fury. _"Enough! !"_ she screamed hysterically. _"I've had __**ENOUGH! ! !"**_

She took apart the molecules of the needles and the Cure inside them, erasing their existence completely. Turning around, she unfolded her arms from where she perched, spreading them wide with stately and majestic grace. She gazed at Logan with eyes no longer even remotely human. They were black eyes, doll's eyes, predator's eyes, and deep in the heart of them burned the fires of creation itself.

Energy pulsed from her body, spiraling outward across the bay and city in successive waves that churned the water more powerfully than any storm of nature. She rose from her perch, flames swirling around her and creating an image of a bird with its wings spread. _Not just any bird,_ he realized. _A phoenix._

She locked her eyes on a hill of rubble that was perfect for surveying her destruction and descended from the bridge, landing atop it gracefully with a grim smile of satisfaction on her lips. She was in the center of the courtyard that had been the main battlefield, streamers of fiery energy swirling faster and farther from her body as though she were becoming the core of her own galaxy. She was certainly blazing brightly enough, generating so much radiance that even sunglasses would have been little help.

Waves crashed furiously against the shore of the island, but the water didn't recede from the impacts. Instead, impossibly, the water began to pour _up_ into the air, as though some great suction pump was evacuating the entire bay. Much the same effect was happening to the island as well, as everything not nailed down – debris, weapons, tools, and the like – shot skyward so suddenly it was as if gravity were reversing itself. Cars shifted, hundred pound slabs of concrete moved effortlessly around, and the small, remaining flames of John's making flared with new life. Thus far, people weren't being affected, but it didn't take much imagination to conclude that probably wouldn't last much longer.

Phoenix was only a passenger to the dark, berserk fury that pulsed through her. Logan wanted to believe otherwise, but the destruction around him couldn't be disproved. "EVERYONE OFF THE ISLAND!" he bellowed

He heard her chuckle of satisfaction inside his mind as the soldiers that had fired at her crumbled into little more than ash. But her rage wasn't satisfied by that act alone. She was in the throes of an all out temper tantrum, as evidenced by the fact that everything around them soon began breaking and shattering as winds with the force of a hurricane swirled around her.

Logan was paralyzed in horror. They'd almost won. They could've taken her home, could've tried to delicately calm her down enough to possibly try merging Jean and Phoenix into one consciousness once again, or could've helped Jean and Phoenix compromise, sharing the use of their body. But there was absolutely no way to talk her down now. What could he do? What could _anyone_ do?

Kitty and the boy with the Cure mutation emerged from the building, and for a brief moment Logan considered turning him loose on Phoenix. Locking eyes briefly with Kitty, he realized with a start that she was considering much the same. And rejecting it, just as he was. Even if the boy was willing, he was a kid and had no place here. And besides that, Phoenix's telepathy would give her enough warning to finish him before he got close enough to effect her.

Though it was clear that Kitty had made up her own mind, she waited for Logan's command. Tension rushed out of her body as Logan waved them off, and Kitty practically dragged the boy across the battlefield, making a beeline for the bridge.

"What have I done?" Magneto muttered to himself.

Only then did Logan realize that the now human Magneto was still beside him, struggling to crawl away, yet transfixed by Phoenix.

"More to the point," Logan growled, "What is _she_ doing?"

"Tearing the fabric of the universe," was the numb reply. "Stripping the existence around her down to its primal components."

"Why?"

Magneto snorted. "Because she can."

Logan grabbed a fist full of the old man's shirt and lifted him off the ground. Magneto was too frail to put up a fight, and fear briefly flashed in his eyes. "Quit fucking around," Logan snarled. "_Your_ rationale, bub."

Magneto shook his head slowly, never taking his eyes off of Phoenix. "I don't think I've ever understood the true meaning of the _next_ step in evolution," he explained, more to himself than to Logan. "For us, for all our powers, we're taking little more than baby steps; for her, seven league boots. She can't handle the transition."

"A system overload," Logan muttered to himself, letting Magneto fall to the ground in a graceless heap.

As Magneto skirted away, Logan noticed that Hank had, thankfully, had the wherewithal to direct all of the soldiers and incarcerated mutants to evacuate the island. The hundreds of soldiers seemed to need no more encouragement than that, and they all began crawling out of their various hiding spaces and stampeded to the bridge, to safety.

Phoenix seemed to pay them no mind, too intent on watching everything around her burn to little more than ash. Logan couldn't move. He knew without a doubt that he would have to kill her, though he couldn't predict whether or not he'd be able to do so without losing his own life.

But there _had_ to be another way. He _couldn't_ kill this woman! She'd been the first to accept him into the X-Men, to _trust_ him, despite the fact that he'd nearly choked her when they'd first met. He even felt as though he'd grown close to Phoenix, despite their rocky beginning. He knew that all she wanted – and needed – was an anchor, a way to keep track of reality. But it was hard for him to be that anchor for her, especially when she had the ability to bend and even break the rules of reality. Hell, her existence defied reality!

"_She'll take the world apart atom by atom just to see what it looks like."_

He took a deep breath. He was out of options, and people were losing their lives because he'd been drawing this out a lot longer than he ought to. But he now realized that he had to do it, that there _was_ no other way. Her rage wouldn't dissipate when Alcatraz Island was no more than a rock. She would keep at it, because the power was so great that it was controlling her.

He had to do this, but not just to save the lives of others. He had to do it to save _her_. Jean was still in there, possibly watching and crying out in agony as she watched her alter ego destroy lives like they were nothing at all. And Phoenix was far past insanity, trying to figure out why she knew everything, had _all _the answers, and was still unable to make sense of anything.

He felt Ororo staring at him and he turned to her. She remained rooted to her spot, but her blue eyes were panicked. She was shaking her head, as if to say that it wasn't Jean up there. She didn't bother to say it out loud, so Logan didn't bother telling her that she was wrong. "I'm the only one who can stop her," he said, raising his voice in order to be heard. She stared at him, open mouthed and disbelieving because the moment had finally come. "Get everyone to safety."

She looked around her at the soldiers that were still scrambling to get away. She started to shake her head, but Logan gave her a hard look. "Go," he said forcefully. She looked like she wanted to say something more, but rose into the air effortlessly to follow his command.

His insides churned as he turned back to face Phoenix. He knew that he was being bombarded with lethal levels of radiation, knew too that she wasn't doing it on purpose. She was broadcasting energies like a star coming into being. She was also, it seemed, still broadcasting subconscious thoughts to him, which gave him a breath of hope. If she could still reach him on that kind of deep subconscious level, maybe he could find a way to pull her all the way back.

"_Jean!"_

Phoenix turned her curious eyes to Logan and cocked her head to the side. _"You know I'm not Jean,"_ she said in a conversational tone. But the destruction around him only increased, as though she hated being called by that name. Worthington Labs peeled apart and broke as easily as if it had been glued together, and various tanks, jeeps and even a few soldiers and mutants that hadn't been able to evacuate fast enough were turned to ash. Logan could only survey the chaos. They were now completely alone on the island, everyone either gone or killed before they could get away.

He turned back to Phoenix with forced determination, and her lip twitched in a smile. _"Amazing, the things I can do, isn't it?"_

Logan decided to take a chance, hoping that Phoenix wouldn't tear him apart for it. "Jean! I know you're still in there!"

Phoenix's eyes narrowed and Logan was pushed back by a pulse of pure energy. His skin felt like it was set on fire. He looked down and saw that a good portion of his uniform had been ripped through like tissue, as well as a few layers of skin and even muscle. The pain was so sudden at first that it didn't quite register, but he sure as hell felt it when his body began healing.

"_You talk to __**me**__,"_Phoenix snarled. _"Jean is dead!"_

"No, she's _not!_"Logan began walking forward against the intense wind and heat that was now directed solely at him. He tried shielding his face, but she only turned the skin and muscle of his arms to ash.

The adamantium was partially what was saving him, because it possessed the tightest molecular binding of any substance conceivable. Given time and will, she could deconstruct it the way that she was shredding everything else, but he was still there, so it was obviously for a reason.

Her thoughts told him that his metal was providing the anchor for his physical being and, at the same time, the outrush of power from her was amplifying his own abilities. The harder she hit him, the more effectively his body healed. Unless she was willing to put forth some real effort, she couldn't kill him, only make him stronger.

But his lack of dying didn't equate to lack of pain. She literally boiled his skin away, melted his eyes, flayed his internal organs. But his body healed unfailingly, the process speeding up to such an extent that obliteration and reconstruction became virtually instantaneous processes.

He cried out in pain, but she was relentless, pushing more at him until a good portion of his chest crumbled to ash and was carried away on the winds. A look of ecstasy crossed her features with every cry of agony that Logan gave, as though every wave of pain that he experienced was the most pleasurable thing she'd ever beheld. Perhaps it was; pain was something that Phoenix understood and was familiar with.

It felt like an eternity before he finally made it up the hill to her, and she was smirking slightly at him when he was finally looking into those monster onyx eyes. "Hi there," Phoenix said softly. Simple words, but her voice resounded in his soul. The effect had him gasping, face-to-face at last with the truth and understanding that angels are as terrible as they are beautiful.

He braced himself against the pain as he felt her begin tearing apart his insides. But he didn't drop to the ground, despite the fact that his willpower was all that was keeping him on his feet. She looked only slightly annoyed on the surface, but on the inside _she_ was screeching at the top of her lungs. On the list of things Phoenix wanted to hear, her alter ego's self righteous bitching and moaning was at the very bottom. _"Shut up, Jean!"_

"_NO!"_

"_**YES! I'm in control now! !"**_

Her thoughts were flying at the speed of light. Some Logan could hear, while others were indiscernible whispers. She seemed to be switching back and forth; the darker, furious voice belonging to Phoenix and the higher, pleading one Jean's.

"_Fuck Scott!"_ Phoenix screamed, grabbing fist fulls of her hair. A loud pulse rang through the air and all of the rocks within a five foot radius shot into the air and began shaking. _"You and your __**goddamn**__ love,"_ she shouted, pulling harder at her hair. _"What has love ever gotten you, Jean? We loved Xavier like a father and look what the fuck he did to us! He separated us! ! He chose not to trust me – without even giving me a chance – because we were stronger than him! He __**MADE **__me into this! !"_

"He made a mistake," Logan told her, raising his voice in order to be heard. "He was wrong, and he was sorry in the end. You have to forgive him."

Her expression turned thoughtful and a bit distrustful. _"He knew his mistake in the end,"_ Jean told her. _"But he could also see your mistake – __**our**__ mistake – a mile away, which is why he tried to apologize. You're carrying this anger around like luggage, and the power we have is reacting to it."_

"Don't you lecture me," she spat out loud. But her tone wasn't quite as vicious. More annoyed. Logan held his breath, hoping against all hope that Jean was strong enough to take back control of her body or at least influence Phoenix enough to –

"Not likely," Phoenix said with a dark chuckle, though she was still rubbing her temple. "I've been locked away for far too long. She'll get control over my dead body."

"You'll keep control over _my_ dead body," Logan told her

Her smirked disappeared and the rage was back full force. "You would _die_ for them?" she accused, her voice disgusted. She was enraged, because she didn't understand. She saw into his mind, into his heart, into his _soul,_ and she _still _didn't understand.

He gasped again, the pain nearly blinding. "No, _not_ for them." She stopped what she was doing and her anger slowly morphed into confusion as she swam around his mind for the answer. "For you," he told her. Her eyes widened and he continued speaking inside her mind. _You think I don't know that you didn't want this pain? That you didn't ask for it?_ She gasped in shock. _You think I don't know that you don't deserve this? Everything I've done __**since you woke up **__has been for __**you! ! **_"For _you_," he repeated out loud, needing Phoenix to know that he was talking to _both of them_, not just Jean

She blinked a few times, her black eyes distant as she tried to comprehend him. Her skin lightened, her rage lifting, though her eyes remained black. She was still projecting to him, and he felt Jean slide through Phoenix's barrier. But she didn't stop there. Logan wasn't sure how he knew, but he felt _something_ click within her mind with a snap of finality, like puzzle pieces being put into place. He knew that Jean and Phoenix were somehow together at the controls, though still separate beings. He smelled both the cinnamon of Phoenix's scent and the ginger of Jean's though it didn't combine in the gingerbread scent that Logan remembered from when they'd first met.

The change was apparent in the eyes as well; the fire was still there, but they'd lost the dark malice as they brightened from endless black to a dark green. Phoenix's power and passion coupled with Jean's compassion and composure.

Logan wanted to weep with joy. He'd done it! _They'd_ done it! But his euphoria was short lived. She was blinking back tears, slowly shaking her head at him. "It's not that simple," they said sadly. Then begged, "You have to save us."

He shook his head defiantly as tears began blurring his own vision. Why? Did it really have to end like this? Had he ever had even the _slightest_ chance of succeeding? _Everyone_ had told him that she needed to be killed, and he'd been the only one that was fool enough to believe that the pieces would fall together the way he'd willed them to.

"That's not foolish," Jean whispered, and Phoenix made a non committal sound of agreement. "We can't survive like this _because_ we can will the pieces to fall however we want."

He had to do it, for her, for _both_ of them, just as he'd said. He looked directly into her dark green eyes. Logan would never be able to take comfort in the fact that he'd killed Phoenix as a necessity, nor would be ever be able to rationalize that Wolverine had taken him over and had killed her out of self defense or in an act of primal rage.

They'd asked him to kill them, and that was what he was going to do.

"I love you," he whispered. Jean already knew that, but Phoenix had probably never believed it. For what it was worth, he needed her to know that, and to understand that not everyone hated her. He needed her to know that at least one person had fought on her behalf, from beginning to bitter end.

Their eyes filled with gratitude, and they reached out to gently stroke his cheek. "I love you too," Phoenix told him earnestly. "Maybe more than you'll ever realize."

Logan couldn't stand the look in her eyes. He pushed his claws out and plunged them into their stomach, making sure to hit all the vulnerable organs that would put them down in a matter of seconds.

Their lips opened and something that sounded like a roar from the Jurassic period tore out of their throat. They bent forward, doubled over in pain, but it wasn't long before the dark green shrank to the regular, human shade that let him know that Jean was now in control. A tired smile crossed her features and the chaos around them died down.

"_That's better,"_ Phoenix whispered as she faded away from the both of them.

Now that her head was clear, he felt Jean working with what little time she had. A piece of her vanished and he 'felt' her send her telekinesis off to Betsy, knowing that as long as she possessed both the power of telepathy and telekinesis that Phoenix could potentially rise again. But if she gave some of her power to someone else (even if it was only a fraction) then she'd stay dead. They'd _both_ stay dead, which was what they both wanted.

Logan let his tears fall freely as he held onto her, not sure of what more she might need from him. "I need you to not be sorry for me," Jean whispered, gathering him into her thoughts. He got the slightest taste of what she and Phoenix had tapped into, the fleeting glimpse filling him with such wonder and pure, primal joy that it was nearly the end of him. Small wonder they'd been overwhelmed.

He felt a light brush within his mind, a familiar brush that felt more like Phoenix than it did like Jean. Whoever it was, she embedded herself into his mind, though it was so slight that he hardly realized it, and forgot about it the instant Jean began speaking. "You can't blame yourself for this," she told him. "It could've been _so_ much worse." She touched his cheek gently, her eyes radiating that familiar warmth that Logan hadn't seen in so long. "And where I'm going… it's so much _**better.**_"

She sighed, possibly to gather oxygen to say more. But her heart stopped and her head fell back, in a graceful arc. Logan knelt to the ground, carefully holding her close. It was hard to believe that he had truly killed her. Despite the blood rushing out of her, she looked like she was just sleeping. Her expression was so peaceful that Logan couldn't help but believe that he'd done the right thing.

But he'd _killed_ her!

" _You can't blame yourself for this. It could've been __**so**__ much worse."_

It wasn't her voice, but the memory felt every bit as real. And thinking back to the nonexistent wound that he'd checked Ororo for, he somehow knew that she was right. It could've ended terribly for _all_ of them. He cried out, holding her scorching hot body and rocking her gently as he shook his head in disbelief. He was sick of being told that he wasn't to blame. How could he not be, at least a little?

It only took a few minutes for everything on the island to settle down after Jean had breathed her last breath, and it was deathly quiet as Logan's sobbing turned into silent tears. He wasn't sure how long he stood there holding her, but after a while she began to feel lighter. He looked down at her, paralyzed by the serene look on her face, the relief and acceptance. She continued to lose weight, though there was no physical change that could tell him why. He feared that she might float away, but when he tightened his hold on her only a little, she crumbled to ash.

Logan watched, mouth open in shock, as the dust of her essence lightly floated away or blended into the rocks beneath his feet. He was so absorbed in watching her ashes morph into the earth that he didn't realize that he wasn't alone until a light hand rested on his shoulder.

He turned and saw Ororo, her face blurred by the tears in his eyes. He didn't know what to say to her. "Didn't you leave?"

She nodded, keeping her distance from him. Logan was thankful and disappointed at the same time. "I came back."

"I…" He looked around them, gesturing around him. "She fell apart," he whispered hoarsely, hating how dazed and confused he sounded.

Ororo nodded in understanding, her own eyes filled with tears. "I saw," she told him quietly. "We should go home."

He stood, or tried to. He felt like he'd been ripped inside out, and he was unsteady on his legs. Possibly from shock. Emotional shock, physical shock… He didn't know. He didn't care.

Ororo, displaying that famous physical strength that no one really knew she possessed in her slim body, caught him before he fell. She held him while he cried, running her fingers though his hair, dotting kisses across his face, and whispering soothingly into his ear.

For once, _she_ was the one anchoring _him_. In that moment, that was the only thing that mattered to Logan.


	95. Aftermath

I don't even know what to say for myself… I tell you all that I'm returning to two reviews a week, and then I go M.I.A. for two weeks. I had writer's block, likely brought on by lack of sleep. Seriously, I get about five hours of sleep a night. If I'm lucky. Hopefully I caught up on all the sleep I've been missing when I slept for almost fifteen hours yesterday...

So, I don't know if I can make any promises about when the next chapter will come. I CAN promise that I'll wrap this story up in the next three or four chapters, and I CAN promise that I won't quit on you when we're soooo close to the end. I have the last two chapters more or less written, but this next one is going to be as much of a challenge as this one was.

So, as usual, thank you SuniGyrl for helping me with this chapter, and thank you in advance for helping me with the next one! :)

Enjoy everyone!

* * *

There was very little talking in the jet on the way back to the mansion. Everyone was exhausted, though some more than others. Hank, who probably hadn't done such strenuous exercise in years, was trying to stretch in the limited space available to him. Logan wanted to point out that there was plenty of space in the middle, but decided against it. He'd seen Hank's hand morph into a human hand as he'd passed the boy – Jimmy, if he remembered correctly – and had the feeling that Hank was trying to avoid that happening again. Not that it appeared to have been a painful process, but Hank seemed a bit ill at ease when that had happened.

Jimmy sat right in the middle with the younger X-Men, talking quietly to Kitty. The seats on his other side were filled by Bobby and Peter, and on the ground in between the pairs lay John, who was still out cold. Bobby had suggested that they put Jimmy close to him in case he woke up and tried to torch the jet, and had simply left him on the ground instead of laying him in one of the chairs. Ororo had insisted that John wouldn't do such a thing, but Bobby couldn't be swayed to believe otherwise. Ororo hadn't uttered another word about it, but everyone could see that she was absolutely livid.

Her posture was rigid, her gaze as hard as ice, and she refused to speak to anyone who had enough courage to try. Logan suspected that she'd let it go only because she didn't want to fight with Bobby, and he didn't bother trying to get in the middle of it. Honestly, he thought that they both had valid points; Logan didn't think that John would set the jet on fire, though perhaps that was only because Ororo was on the jet and there was the possibility of hurting her. He did, however, feel that John wouldn't hesitate to torch Bobby if he had the chance. Logan didn't know their history, but he'd seen the looks in both their eyes while they'd been fighting and there seemed to be a lot of bad blood between them.

And he wasn't adverse to Jimmy neutralizing John's powers for that reason, but what did bother him was John's hands and arms. His power kept his body naturally hot, so it stood to reason that his power would heal his frostbitten hands, or at least thaw them a little before the cold did any major damage to him. That obviously couldn't happen if John was within range of Jimmy's power. Nerve endings were probably damaged already and if he didn't get help soon, he'd likely have to have both of his hands amputated at least halfway up his forearms.

As bad as he had been the past year, Logan didn't feel that John deserved a punishment quite _that_ harsh.

Logan knew that he'd have to use his blood to heal John, but hesitated in doing so right away. There weren't any sterile syringes in the first aid kit, which meant that if Logan wanted to heal him now, he'd have to cut them both open and pour his blood directly into John's wounds. He wasn't enthusiastic about the mess that it would make, but it would help John, and that was all that really mattered.

He wasn't sure why he suddenly cared so much about John, but he suspected that it was because he could see how much the boy truly meant to Ororo. And he'd seen for himself months ago how in love with him Lee was. He really was just a kid that had been pointed in the wrong direction, and while Logan didn't think that John ought to be absolved of his sins, he did feel that perhaps he deserved a chance to redeem himself.

Didn't he? Hadn't Logan done shady things in his past that he wasn't proud of? And hadn't Logan been given the chance to prove his worth? Hadn't they all, for that matter?

Deciding that perhaps he was thinking too much, he made himself get up from his spot in the back of the jet and tried to ignore how his muscles screamed in protest. He knelt down by John, popped his claws out of his fists, and didn't hesitate to cut John's hands and then the palm of his hand open.

Kitty leaned over. "Ah, Logan? I don't think that's such a good idea."

He ignored her as he positioned his bleeding hand over John's wounds, sure that she was just confused because she'd never seen him do this before. But then he noticed that John's wounds weren't healing right away. He cut into a vein in his wrist and tried again with the same results. For that matter, his own wounds weren't healing up either. "What the…"

His vision began swimming and he suddenly couldn't tell if he was standing or sitting or laying down. He wasn't sure of what he was hearing or seeing, but his blurry vision swirled until he was sure that he was laying on the ground on Alcatraz, staring at Ororo. Her worried eyes were fixed on his, despite the fact that a sharp object was sticking out of her chest. He felt like his body was destroying itself, and he would've writhed in agony if he had the energy…

Then everything roared back to life in an instant. His cuts closed quickly, but John's cuts were still wide open. As soon as he was coordinated enough, Logan cut himself and tried again, this time satisfied when his blood entered John's system and began healing him immediately. A few more cuts here and there and John was as good as new, though still unconscious. Just as well, as the process would've been painful for him.

Logan noticed a shadow hovering over him and when he looked up, he saw Ororo, her expression an interesting mixture of anger and gratitude. "Are you out of your mind?" she snapped.

Logan blinked. "I just _helped_ him."

She scoffed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "What makes you think you're invincible? What in God's name made you think that the boy's power wouldn't affect you like it does _every other_ mutant?"

What the hell was she talking about? Logan looked around and noticed that Jimmy was no longer in the seat beside him, but rather in the back of the jet, gingerly rubbing at the back of his bald head. When had he moved…

Logan looked back at Ororo. _She'd_ put him back there – likely with a rough gust of wind. But why would she…

He shook his head, suddenly feeling very stupid. Jimmy's power! It had neutralized his healing factor, which had nearly killed him. She was furious because he hadn't thought to tell Jimmy to move away before attempting to heal John.

Logan really had no excuse. It honestly hadn't occurred to him that Jimmy's power would cancel out his own, let alone start killing him. He was exhausted, damn it, far past thinking clearly. "I had a one track mind," Logan explained shortly. "I'm _tired_."

Her eyes didn't soften, but she didn't berate him anymore. Whether it was because he'd done it to help John or because she understood what it meant to be _that_ tired, he didn't know. Either way, she dropped it and looked over his shoulder, addressing Jimmy. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to throw you that hard," she said calmly. "I panicked and reacted before thinking."

"You didn't have to throw him at all," Bobby told her, an edge to his voice.

"Well, I had to do _something_ because the person sitting _right next to him_ didn't do a goddamn thing!" she snapped back. Bobby flinched in surprise, but Ororo shook her head. "Oh, hell no! You want to be spoken to like a man then _take it_ like a man!"

Logan might've jumped to Bobby's defense, but Ororo was right. He hadn't spoken to Ororo as a student to a teacher, but like an equal to an equal. And she'd treated him like an equal by snapping at him like she would anyone else. Bobby too seemed to realize this and said nothing. After a few moments of awkward and tense silence, a small voice spoke up in the back.

"I didn't… know that I could _kill_ someone with my power." All eyes moved to the back of the jet, but Jimmy's gaze was fixed on Logan. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"It wasn't your fault," Ororo told him firmly. "All mutants have powers that are both a curse and a blessing. Your powers are no exception. You'll learn that soon enough."

"I…" Jimmy shook his head, pulling away when Kitty tried to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. He looked up at Logan, his eyes apologetic.

Logan held up a hand to silence the boy before he could speak again. "You didn't know. Now you do. There aren't many mutants out there that your power is lethal to, so you had no reason to believe that your mutation could kill me."

He shifted uneasily in his seat. "Still…"

"Stop it, kid. I'm not mad at you, but if you keep that up then I might start getting irritated." Jimmy flinched and Logan almost felt bad for saying that. Almost. But he doubted that it had seriously hurt his feelings and since it shut the boy up, the pros outweighed the cons. And besides, the kid would have to learn to develop thick skin. He was a mutant, and while he may have been coddled at Worthington Labs, he'd be shit out of luck if he thought it was going to happen in the real world.

Still feeling slightly nauseous, Logan pulled himself into the seat that Jimmy had vacated. Ororo looked over her shoulder at decided to sit down in the seat next to him, pulling him against her until he was leaning heavily on her shoulder. He sighed deeply, not even caring that the jet was set to autopilot. He looked down at John's form at was slightly envious of his state. He was on the verge of passing out himself.

He didn't even realize that he was drifting off to sleep until Ororo jerked away from him, nearly causing him to topple over. A scathing remark was on the tip of his tongue but he held it back when he saw the reason for it. She finally fished her phone out of her pocket and mumbled an apology to Logan before answering.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end sounded beyond hysteric. "Ororo! Wir haben alle gefühlt was passiert ist, nachdem die zweite Welle Soldaten kam. Es war im Fernsehen, aber als die Soldaten Jean angriffen, haben sie aufgehört, zu übertragen. Sind alle am Leben? _Wo ist Katherine_? ! ?" (We all felt what happened after the second wave of soldiers came! It was on the television but when the soldiers attacked Jean it cut out! Is everyone alive? ! _Where is Katherine_? ! ?)

Despite Kurt's rapid speech, Logan followed his every word flawlessly. Ororo, on the other hand, had clearly gotten lost after he'd said her name. She pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it like she was seriously debating hanging up on him. Logan took the opportunity to gently pluck the phone from her grasp and spoke to Kurt.

"Beruhige dich, Kurt. Es geht allen gut." (Calm yourself, Kurt. Everyone is fine.)

"Katherine too, yes?"

"Yeah, Kitty's fine too. You want to talk to her?"

"Absolutely not." Logan turned around in his seat and saw Kitty glaring right at him. She shook her head to emphasize her point and Logan paused, thinking of a way to try retracting that statement. Clearly she hadn't forgiven Kurt for going back to Massachusetts when she'd felt that she needed him more. And judging by the look on her face, she wasn't ready to forgive him anytime soon.

Logan swallowed. "Ah…"

"I heard her," Kurt said quietly. "I do not expect that she will want to talk to me for a long time."

Logan felt bad for him, but didn't know how to offer the German any words of wisdom or comfort. He knew that Kurt wouldn't have to wait forever for her forgiveness, and hoped that Kurt knew it too. "Sie braucht ein wenig Zeit," he assured the German. (She needs a little time.)

"I only wanted to know that she was alright," Kurt continued. "That _all_ of you are alright. How did things escalate and get out of control so quickly?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Logan told him, stifling a yawn.

"You need rest," Kurt said knowingly. "I am sure all of you do. If all of you are fine then I will call at a later date. As soon as Betsy, Emma and Gambit come back, I will be back in New York."

Logan nodded. "Sounds good. Ich werde es ihr sagen." (I'll tell her.)

Kurt coughed uncomfortably. "Perhaps that is not – "

"Ich werde es ihr sagen," Logan repeated. "Sie möchte es vielleicht nicht hören, aber sie sollte es." (She may not want to hear it, but she needs to.)

There was a long pause on the other end before Kurt signed. "I suppose you are right. Danke." (Thank you.)

"Bitte," Logan returned. "Auf Wiedersehen." (You're welcome. Goodbye.)

"Gute Nacht." (Good night.)

He handed the phone to Ororo without a word and she ended the connection before putting it back in her pocket. He had the strong urge to tell Kitty that there had been no need to be a brat, but he doubted that it would get him anywhere. She was every bit as stubborn as Logan was, and he doubted that she didn't already know that she was acting childishly.

"He was only worried about you," he said instead, know that Kitty knew he was talking to her.

There was a long pause before she finally answered. "I know. Part of me wishes that he didn't care. It would make things _so_ much easier."

Logan could understand that logic. It hurt to be mad at someone that you loved. It hurt even more when they tried to make it up to you, but you just weren't ready yet.

He kept silent and laid his head back on Ororo's shoulder as they continued home. The jet landed five minutes later and everyone was slow in getting off, all tired from the night they'd had and probably ready to sleep for days. Logan tried to carry John but almost dropped him twice. Perhaps it was because he was heavier than he looked, but likely it was because Logan as just too weak at the moment. Ororo used some trick with gravity to make him almost weightless as they carried him to the medical bay and hooked him up to various machines.

She didn't utter a word, but Logan knew that she was a little more at ease then when he'd been on the jet. His hands were healed, and Logan was sure that any concussion or skull fracture he might've had would've been healed by Logan's blood cycling through his body as well.

Sure enough, the monitors showed that his vitals were all perfectly fine. Ororo breathed a true sigh of relief and Logan turned to make his way out of the room. It was fine with him if she wanted to stay with John all night, but he'd be dead on his feet if he tried staying awake even for another hour.

As Betsy spoke inside his mind, Logan grumbled angrily and wondered if the universe _wanted_ him that way. _"We have a bit of a problem up here," _she said.

Logan sighed and went up to the front door of the mansion. Betsy and Emma wore matching scowls as they stood on either side of the door like guards. Outside sounded like absolute chaos. "They've been here for hours," Emma reported. "Long before you got back. I take it no one was paying attention when you landed."

Logan shrugged. Apparently not. "Jet was on autopilot. We just got back."

"I can see that."

Her eyes darted down and Logan noticed that his suit was half gone, destroyed by Phoenix. His pants were mostly intact, so he couldn't muster the energy to care that both women were ogling his bare chest a little.

"I'm sure I'm correct in guessing that you've never had to deal with the paparazzi before," Betsy drawled. "And I doubt that the X-Men have ever had to deal with it on this scale, at least, not without Xavier's help. The mansion is surrounded. They're like roaches."

"We can't get rid of them by any means that we'd ordinarily use," Emma put in. "There are too many of them and if one leaves there are ten more to take his place. Not to mention the fact that there are military troops out there demanding that we release the criminal we're hoarding. That one is only within the last five minutes. They know that this is a mutant establishment, so they could probably sue us, and _win_, if any of us use our powers to make them leave."

Logan frowned, his brain still not working fast enough. "What criminal?" Had Magneto somehow hitched a ride on the jet?

"They probably mean me." Logan turned around and saw John walking towards them, gingerly rubbing his head. At worst, he looked like he had a bad headache or perhaps a hangover, but he seemed fine otherwise. Ororo hovered behind him cautiously as John made his way to the front door. "So what'll it be? Will you throw me to the wolves without looking back or will you let me run?"

"How far could you get in your condition," Emma asked snidely.

"Far enough," he returned in the same tone. "I'm a little more resourceful then I used to be."

"Oh, you're a lot of things that you never used to be," Betsy said, her tone disappointed. "And I think it's time you man up and take responsibility for what you've done rather than tuck your tail between your legs and run."

John took a step closer to Betsy, and Logan noticed that he'd grown a few inches the past year. He also seemed a little more muscular, now that he thought about it, but after seeing John's displays of power it didn't really surprise him. "I _would_ accept responsibility for my actions if I thought that there was even the _slightest_ chance that I'd be treated like any other criminal out there," John hissed. "But I'm a mutant. You know as well as I do what my punishment will be."

"They won't kill you," Logan said, though that statement sounded uncertain even to his own ears.

"I'm sure they'll try," John said bitterly, "but after Magneto's escape from his prison they made a new and improved prison, one just for mutants. And I'm sure I'll get the royal treatment since I'm his protégé."

"Well you brought that on yourself, now, didn't you?"

He didn't flinch under Ororo's harsh tone, but his shoulders visibly slumped. "Why didn't you just _leave_ me?" he asked quietly. "This would've been so much easier if I'd just woken up in prison and thought you'd abandoned me, because I honestly wouldn't've blamed you…"

"Did you expect sympathy here?" Ororo demanded.

He rounded on her, and Logan could've sworn that he saw John's eyes flash orange for an instant. "No, I didn't," he spat. "That's why I'm wondering what the fuck I'm doing here! Why did you bring me back only to berate me before turning me over to the police?"

"I never had any intention of turning you in," Ororo snapped back. She reigned in her temper and her eyes were suddenly pleading. "John, you belong _here_. You always have!"

"No, I don't." He shook his head sadly, holding his arms out and waiting for her to step into his embrace. "You _want_ me to belong here, ma, but I never have. I don't think I ever will."

She hugged him fiercely. "You know that's not true."

"You don't want it to be true," John corrected. "My… _record_ notwithstanding, this has never been the place for me. I'm not like you. I don't _want_ to help people that can't help themselves. I'm not a hero."

"That doesn't mean that you have to be a villain, John."

His frame went rigid and he slowly let go of Ororo, looking up at the girl standing at the bottom of the staircase. He stared at her for a long moment, almost like he wasn't sure that she was real. "Where were you during all of this?" he asked hoarsely.

"Here," Lee snapped.

Some of the tension left him but certainly not all of it. Logan suddenly felt the urge to leave them to talk, but he noticed that none of the other women were budging. He thought that perhaps they ought to, but Betsy and Emma both shook their heads without looking at him. They didn't trust John not to run if they left him alone.

"It's too late for anything else," John mumbled, shrinking away from Lee's harsh gaze.

She stepped forward. "No it's not! That's the purpose of atonement!"

"And how do I atone for anything if I'm sentenced to rot in a mutant prison for the rest of my life? It's either that, or I spend the rest of my life running, or I leave the country. Those are my only choices, Lee, and none of them – " He'd stopped talking, but Betsy provided the rest of the statement in Logan's mind. _"None of them includes you."_

Logan wasn't sure if Betsy had projected that to Lee too or if she was naturally perceptive of John's thoughts, but she seemed to understand. Tears welled up in her eyes and she stepped closer to him. Her eyes said everything: _"Don't leave me again."_

He took a hesitant step back and she threw herself at him, burying her face in his chest and clinging to him for dear life. They stood in silence for a long time, and after a while he finally wrapped his arms around her and crushed her small frame to him, heaving a ragged sigh of relief. Logan again got that feeling that they were intruding on a private moment and opened his mouth to say something, but John spoke first. "Come with me," he whispered.

Ororo spoke up next. "I don't think – "

"Done," Lee said without hesitation. Logan shook his head, and she shook it right back. "Don't you tell me to stay. This whole year I've been working my ass off, only to be told that I don't have enough control to join the X-Men on even the simplest of missions. If I don't have enough control now then maybe I never will. It's clear that I'll never be an X-Man, so what the hell am I doing here?"

"You'll learn to control your powers," Betsy said firmly.

"Not here," Lee returned.

Logan wanted to tell her that it was dangerous, but how could he when he knew that John would never lay a finger on her, would never let anything bad happen to her? Being a fugitive wouldn't be a lifestyle that she'd enjoy, but as long as she was with John she probably wouldn't care. In the back of his mind was the nagging worry that Lee would get caught up in a criminal lifestyle, but perhaps John had learned from his mistakes and would indeed try to atone for them. If anyone could truly push him to do that, it would be Lee.

Logan noted that Ororo seemed to be thinking along the same lines, but Betsy and Emma's expressions were both emotionless. _"He needs to go to prison,"_ Betsy said.

Emma nodded her agreement. _"He shouldn't be exempt just because he's in love with her. Plenty of people in love get locked away."_

_So you'd like for them to be as bitter as you,_ Logan thought before he could shield his thoughts.

Emma threw him a murderous look. _"Don't start with me. I'm looking at the situation objectively; for what he's done, he deserves to do time. As far as this mutant prison he spoke of, I don't like the sound of it, and we'll do everything in our power to keep him out if there if it's a shady operation. But if it's a legitimate establishment meant for incarcerating mutants then I'll throw him in myself. He needs to be treated like anyone else who breaks the law, or he'll never learn not to. Perhaps being apart from her will prompt him to think again next time he wants to start riots or participate in a war."_

Betsy nodded in mute agreement, and Logan had to admit that he couldn't fault their logic. If John was going to prison just like anyone else that broke the law, then he was only getting what was coming to him. Lee would be devastated, but there was really nothing that could be done about that. John had made his choices, and he'd eventually have to pay the consequences.

And he felt better knowing that they wouldn't shuffle him off to any prison that would mistreat him for being a mutant. He needed to be treated like someone who had broken the law, not someone that needed to be punished for his genetics.

Ororo was scowling at Betsy, and he could only guess that they were debating the same issue. He was proven right when Emma began letting him listen in.

"… _see how much they mean to each other,"_ Ororo was saying.

"_That doesn't matter."_

"_Only to you. You've never felt that way about anyone, so you can't even __**imagine**__._ _You've never __**been**__ half of a whole. You don't know what it's like for it to __**hurt**__ when you're close to that person. You can't fathom how fucking __**unbearable**__ it is to be apart from them."_

"_Storm, how he feels about her has absolutely nothing to do with what he's done this past year. He's committed crimes, and for that he deserves to go to prison just like anyone else. How else is he supposed to learn? Apparently nothing else is getting through to him."_

"_Read his mind. See for yourself that he wasn't just misguided. Have none of us ever been in a similar position? Have we never been on the wrong side of the law? Have we never fought for something that maybe we thought was right? Have we never taken it that one step too far? And when we realized that we were in the wrong, did we voluntarily go to prison to serve out time? Or did we just promise ourselves that we wouldn't do it again and push on?"_

Betsy stared at her intensely, mulling that over carefully.

"_Read his mind,"_ Ororo repeated. _"Look deep into the corners that even he can't access. The answer to whether or not he's truly learned anything is in there. We all know that he'll be taken to some lab to be experimented on if we let those soldiers take him."_

Betsy sighed heavily. _"This better be worth the effort."_ Out loud, she said, "Let me read your mind, John." Her tone was polite, but there really wasn't any room for debate.

John looked hesitantly between all of them before stepping out of Lee's arms and up to Betsy. It looked like it was an effort for Lee to stay behind, but she did so, watching John and Betsy curiously.

"Look me in the eye and don't blink," Betsy instructed. Her purple eyes flashed brighter and her butterfly mask appeared as she stared intensely into John's eyes. Logan felt the buzz of activity around their minds, but neither Betsy nor Emma provided the rest of them with any of John's inner thoughts. Perhaps that was best. Those were his private thoughts and he'd really only given Betsy permission to look at them.

She stared at him without blinking for a long time before shaking her head and frowning. "Shit," she hissed.

Before anyone could ask what she'd seen, the front doors opened to reveal two military officers, at least five armed soldiers, and Bobby. Behind them was a flood of reporters and paparazzi, all taking pictures and shouting questions and getting as close to the action as physically possible without stepping over the threshold. Their positioning made it almost impossible to shut the double doors, so no one bothered to try.

Ororo shook her head in disbelief and outrage. Betsy shoved John back towards Lee and watched the soldiers distrustfully. Either she liked what she'd seen inside John's mind, or perhaps she didn't like what she saw in the minds of the soldiers. Lee stood in front of John and glared at the soldiers with the look of a guard dog ready to fight to the death. Logan and Emma both stepped up to the officers, ready to keep this meeting as civil as possible. One wrong word or move and Logan had the feeling that the shit would hit the fan.

The highest ranking officer, a captain, addressed both Logan and Emma with a calm enough tone. "We have a warrant for the arrest of a Mr. John Allerdyce."

"On what charges?" Emma asked calmly.

"That kid has a novel length list of charges," one of the soldiers – Anderson, his tag read – muttered. Then he nodded to Logan. "Why don't you ask your pal, here. You were there, buddy."

Logan gave him a look that could wither extremities. "I'm not the one, bub. Not tonight."

Anderson shrugged but shifted the position of the weapon he was holding. The captain gave him a dirty look, but otherwise maintained his professionalism. "Mr. Allerdyce is wanted for many things, of which I'm sure you're well aware. First and foremost is that he is known to be an active participant in Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and was, in fact, his right hand man. If you'd like to see the warrant you're more than welcome to."

"Don't mind if I do," Betsy said. She held out her hand and a piece of paper ripped out of the officer's grasp and flew through the air to Betsy. She snatched it easily out of midair and it took Logan a moment to remember that Jean had given Betsy her telekinesis before dying. He wondered how she'd mastered control of it so easily and quickly, and Betsy explained while she read over the warrant.

"_The basic concept of using all powers is the same. The __**power**__ is in your genes, but the __**ability**__ is in your mind. If that makes sense."_

Logan nodded. He supposed that made some sense. And it wasn't like she'd levitated a car or had done something extremely strenuous or complicated.

"You have no evidence whatsoever to prove these allegations," Emma declared. She must've been looking at the warrant through Betsy's eyes or listening to her run down the list. "I can tell you right now that the majority of those crimes were not committed by him. And I know that, Captain Davis, because I can read his mind, as clearly as you hear me now."

He hesitated only a moment before clearing his throat. "Ma'am, we've been ordered by General Sharpe, who was ordered by the _president himself_, to take this man into custody."

"Well you're _not_ taking him," Ororo snarled, stepping forward.

Anderson took a step closer to Ororo as well and leveled his weapon right at her heart. "Lady, we're either taking him, or we're taking him _and_ you."

Before anyone could blink, Logan's claws jumped out of his fists and he sliced Anderson's gun clean in half before positioning his claws directly under the man's chin. "I'm trying not to lose my patience with you but I'm _this close_ to getting truly belligerent."

"Are you sure you want to do that with so many witnesses," asked the lieutenant that stood next to the captain.

Logan didn't blink as he popped his claws out of his other hand and did the same to another nearby soldier. Both men began shaking as they looked fearfully between Logan and their commanding officers. Logan chuckled humorlessly at the lieutenant. "I'd say I'm getting to the point where I don't give a shit anymore. What makes you think you can barge into _our_ house – waving weapons and making demands – and not expect a little resistance?"

"We'll leave peacefully once we have Mr. Allerdyce in custody," the captain promised.

"And where will you take him?" Ororo demanded.

"I'm afraid that's classified information," the lieutenant said.

"Well, why don't you come back when it's _not_ classified," Emma suggested with a sneer. "Forgive us, but we'd like to be sure that he's being treated like a prisoner and _not_ like an experiment. Syracuse Asylum doesn't sound like any prison I've ever heard of."

"An _asylum_? !" Lee growled. "Like _**hell! !**_"

Logan saw swirling colors out of the corner of his eye and turned to see that there were various colorful orbs floating around in the air in front of Lee, all of which seemed to be under her control. But it seemed like the angrier and tenser she got, the faster they swirled and brighter they glowed. It only took a moment for him to realize that those colorful orbs were actually explosives.

"Jubilation Lee," Betsy said calmly, "you need to calm down. You could hurt them."

"I _will_ hurt them!"

An arm snaked around Lee's waist and she hesitated. Logan wasn't sure if anyone else heard him whispering to her, but he heard it loud and clear. "Don't do this. Not for me. You're not _like_ me."

"Did you hear _nothing_? They want to put you in an asylum! !"

"They can't take _me_," he assured with a smug expression.

"Then they won't leave," Bobby said. "_You_ have the power to end all this. You're the reason they're here, and if they have you then they'll leave us alone. _All_ of us, including Lee."

That seemed to make John consider hesitantly, and Lee noticed the pause in response. "Shut up, Bobby," she screeched, turning to him. "You _want_ him to go someplace to get experimented on? !"

"_No_! I only said that he should go with them!"

Logan caught his meaning; Bobby thought that John would be able to escape once they were out of the house. He _wanted_ John to escape. That lessened the offense of Bobby bringing the troops inside the house, but he was still going to have a talk with Bobby when this was over. He just hoped that this didn't end badly.

But Lee didn't seem to pick up on the hint that Bobby gave. She threw her arm out and two green orbs hurtled themselves at Bobby. He threw up a wall of ice and it shattered to pieces on impact. All hell broke loose after that. Everyone began shouting at once, the soldiers all drew their guns and took aim, moving to try to get a hold of John. He evaded their grasp easily, at least until Bobby kicked him square in the chest, throwing him into the waiting arms of the soldiers.

John began struggling the instant they had him in their grasp. He hollered in outrage, kicked and screamed and delivered a few heavy and precise blows to the soldiers trying to incarcerate him. Logan was sure that he tried burning them too, but they came prepared and were wearing special thermal gloves. Nothing was working, and they were slowly dragging him away.

All the while, his eyes stayed locked on Lee. She was struggling just as hard against Bobby, who had an arm around her neck and waist to hold her back. Ororo tried to jump at them and follow John out the door, but Logan held her back, knowing that they would make good on their threat and arrest her if she gave them a reason to. She kicked and screamed as much as everyone else, delivering substantial shocks to Logan in an attempt to make him let go.

Callous though it may have been, he preferred that they just take John rather than Ororo and Lee as well. The only thing that the two women were guilty of was loving John. John, on the other hand… Well, he didn't deserve to be experimented on, but Logan too believed that John would be able to escape once he was a safe distance away.

But that belief extinguished like a candle flame when a needle was shoved into John's neck and the Australian went limp.

Ororo and Lee both screeched in blind fury. "What did you do to him?" "Where are you taking him?" "Let him _go! !_" _**"JOHN! ! !"**_

Logan wasn't sure what anyone else did, but he let Ororo go and took off after them himself. He made it about five steps before he realized that the soldiers were all aiming at both him and Ororo. They fired and both mutants went to the ground. They weren't hit with bullets, but rather some kind of stunners that knocked the air out of their lungs and made them momentarily blind. At least, Logan assumed that the same thing happened to Ororo, because when he was able to see again she was blinking rapidly and breathing heavily.

They were already gone by the time the two of them were on their feet. Ororo stood still, looking up into the sky as though weighting the pros and cons of shooting the helicopter out of the air. Behind them Emma and Betsy were gasping for air – likely they'd been hit with those strange stun guns too – and cursing furiously in their minds. Bobby was cursing quietly under his breath, and Lee was crying hysterically.

And the mass of reporters didn't seem to give a damn about any of it, only continued taking pictures and scribbling notes and shouting questions. Logan was suddenly filled with a black hatred for all of them as he dragged Ororo back inside and forced the doors closed, making sure to destroy a few cameras with his claws in the process.

Just that quickly it was dead silent, except for the hum of activity outside. Lee was no longer crying, and was instead glaring at Bobby. After a few seconds of tense silence, she jumped at him and began tearing at him like a wild animal. She delivered punches fueled by raw rage and anguish, and it only took a few seconds for Logan to recognize that flash in her eyes. It was a look he knew all too well; she meant to kill him.

He waited for an opening and pulled Lee off of Bobby, only to get his nose broken with an elbow to the face. Shock loosened his grip on her and she tackled Bobby again, beating him within an inch of his life. He seemed too shocked to defend himself and it was clear that he was already on the verge of passing out. Only up close did Logan realize that Lee was letting off explosions with every punch that she delivered. She didn't pause when she broke bones or when he was too weak and beaten to even gasp for air.

Logan's nose healed and he yanked her off again, putting her in a firm headlock to keep her mostly immobile. She still kicked furiously, screamed and wiggled and even tried biting him, but she did no more major damage. Her cries of anguish broke his heart and nearly made him let her go, but he remembered the look in her eyes and assured himself that letting her go would mean signing Bobby's death certificate.

Bobby winced and coughed up blood as he crawled away from Lee, but stopped when his gaze fell past their shoulders, paralyzed in horror. Logan looked over his shoulder as well, and his heart plummeted when he saw that Ororo was gazing at Bobby with that same murderous intent.

But she wasn't herself. Her eyes, normally sapphire blue or a frosty white, were now a bright, electric blue. Licks of static were dancing across her face, and white lightning was playing in her hair, throwing her locks this way and that and making it stand on end. And her smell… she smelled like… Ozone.

_Beautiful,_ he thought. _Beautiful and terrifying…_

"_Like a storm," _she whispered inside his mind.

Logan shook his head helplessly. He didn't want to believe that Ororo was gone, but what more proof did he need? Her emotions had overwhelmed all rational thought and now she was at the mercy of her powers. They all were.


	96. Winding Down

Another chapter! And only a week late! (You probably aren't as excited about that as I am, but after the weekend I had I'm feeling pretty damn happy about ANYTHING I manage to accomplish!)

It's almost over, my loyal readers, so you won't have to put up with me much longer! Thank you to SuniGyrl for your help in making this chapter that much better, and enjoy everyone!

* * *

Logan locked his eyes on Storm's rigid form. He didn't know what to do. Obviously she didn't understand that Bobby had been – in his own, admittedly assbackwards, way – trying to help John. Bruised and battered as he was, he'd die easily at Storm's hand. Hell, even if Bobby were at full strength, he didn't stand a chance against her in this furious state.

And Lee, she was past being reasoned with. For that reason, Logan did his own version of a Vulcan nerve pinch, knocking her out cold. He lay her gently on the ground and turned his full attention to Storm as he approached slowly, trying not to startle her. Her head snapped in his direction as he got closer, the broken heap that had been the target of her rage more or less forgotten. Just that fast. Like Phoenix, it appeared that Storm had an exceptionally short attention span.

Logan felt everyone in the room holding their breath as they watched him, but it wasn't hard to ignore. He stopped about an arms length away from her, wondering if he ought to make the first move or wait for a signal from her that it was okay. He raised his hand slowly, and when she didn't move away or show any signs of hostility, he carefully reached out and placed his hand on her cheek. His touch was feather soft. He didn't want her to shock him, nor did he want her to become angry with him and pull away. The static streaking across her face seemed to grow more enthusiastic and crawled up his arm. But it did little more than tickle his skin, leaving a pleasant tingle in its wake. Somehow, he knew that she was showing him what his touch felt like to her.

They stared at each other for a long time before Storm turned her head into his hand, slowly, as though she feared startling him as well. She pressed her lips to his palm, and the action was to intimate and unexpected that it sent a shock right to his heart, making his knees tremble slightly. _"I don't want you to be afraid of me,"_ she whispered inside his mind. _"I'm not Phoenix."_

"But your power is like hers," Betsy told her. "You have to be aware of – "

"_I wasn't __**speaking **__to you,"_ Storm snapped, her tone darker than it had been only moments ago. Betsy closed her mouth immediately and looked at Logan, silently asking him to handle this situation.

He felt a small pang of annoyance, because Storm wasn't a 'situation' to be handled. Nevertheless, he ran his thumb gently over her cheek to bring her focus back to him. If he distracted her for long enough, then perhaps she'd completely forget about Bobby. If she hadn't already.

Her electric blue eyes snapped over his shoulder to Bobby. _Fuck!_ He'd forgotten that, in this state, she could read his mind as well as speak to him. He braced himself to defend Bobby in any way that he could, but faltered when she looked back at him and frowned. Pulling away from Logan's touch, she said, _"I wasn't going to hurt him."_

He slowly drew his hand away from her, taking a step back as well. He wasn't afraid of her, but she looked like she was angry with him and wanted a little distance between them. She probably didn't want to hear what he had to say about it, but… _What was I supposed to think?_

He really wanted an answer. She was angry with Bobby for bringing in those officers and actually making it possible for them to steal away John like that. She'd gotten so angry, in fact, that her emotions had translated into the raw power that she was radiating now. And the way she'd been glaring down at Bobby had only suggested violent hostility. He'd seen that look on Phoenix's face enough times to recognize it immediately. What else _could _he think, but that Storm meant to take her anger out on him?

A gentle, frigid breeze blew across his face and Logan took another step back as her expression darkened. _"I'm __**not **__Phoenix,"_ she repeated, thunder accompanying that statement. She turned her attention to Bobby and he immediately began writhing in agony, his lips parted in a scream he couldn't vocalize. Logan heard the sickening snap of bones breaking and Bobby's entire body jerked. More cracking could be heard, but Bobby remained motionless. Mouthfuls of blood gushed out of his mouth, and he got a little bit paler. Then it seemed to be over.

Logan couldn't help the panic that seized him for an instant, but Storm gave him a black look. _"He's __**unconscious**__,"_ she snapped.

He frowned, looking between Storm and Bobby. She'd… _healed_ him? ! Somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, he knew that she'd done it before. But how the hell was that _possible?_

"Do you remember what Psylocke just told you about power versus ability?" Storm asked conversationally. "The X-gene grants us a mutation, and every mutant has the same X-gene. How, then, is it possible that we have different powers?"

Logan nodded. It was a concept that Xavier had been trying to teach from the start. "The power is in the mind."

Emma nodded as well. "We choose our powers, believe it or not," she put in. "We just don't realize it because it happens on such a deeply subconscious level."

"Each brain fires a unique neurological sequence," Betsy continued, "and because of the X-gene, that sequence gives a mutant their specific power. If Bobby's brain were to fire the same neurological signals as yours…"

"His X-gene would manifest it into a healing factor," Logan finished, turning to Storm. That was interesting, to say the very least, and more than impressive that she had the ability to do that.

If she heard the compliment, she didn't show it. Her hard eyes were locked on him, and while she didn't necessarily look like she was going to attack, she looked more than a little unhappy with Logan.

Still, that didn't stop her from finishing her explanation. "Neurological activity is a form of electricity, which is why I was able to manipulate it. I isolated the activity in your mind that grants you your healing ability and replicated it in his mind so that he could heal himself." Her expression softened slightly and she turned to Bobby, cocking her head to the side. "A painful process, it seems. That's why I knocked him out."

Her eyes suddenly drooped heavily and she swayed on her feet. Her hair fell limp, the soft breeze in the room ceased, her eyes faded to the familiar sapphire blue, and the thick smell of ozone nearly vanished. Logan didn't even think as he stepped beside her to steady her on her feet, and he didn't let go despite hearing her angrily grumble that he let her go. I'm _not_ her," Ororo said firmly, trying (unsuccessfully) to push him away and stand on her own.

He nodded, not daring to dig his grave any deeper. He had the feeling that she'd gotten mad because he'd – without realizing or intending to – treated Storm the way he might've treated Phoenix in a similar situation. Hadn't he, more than once, compared her reactions to what Phoenix's might've been? As she'd so forcefully stated – with good reason – they were _not_ the same woman. Phoenix wouldn't've been so easily sidetracked from her anger by Logan's mere presence, nor would she, Logan suspected, have cared if he was afraid of her.

On that note… "I wasn't afraid _of_ you," he told her softly, standing only close enough to support her.

"_For_ me," she muttered. "Whatever." The statement seemed to have eased her a little, however, as some of the tension in her shoulders left and she pulled away from him a little less.

It was partially true. He _hadn't_ been afraid for himself, but rather for Bobby and for what killing him would mean to Ororo once she returned to herself. Logan knew what it felt like to break free of a red rage, only to find that you'd hurt someone much more than you meant to, or that you'd never meant to hurt at all.

"I think it's time for bed," Emma declared after a long pause, looking to Betsy and motioning to the two teens. "And I think it might be best if they don't remember this little episode."

Logan wanted to object, but he had no valid argument. Who could say that Lee definitely wouldn't wake up and try to kill Bobby again? Or run off and try to find John?

Speaking of which, it was likely that fatigue was the only thing keeping Ororo from moving heaven and earth to find John. Once she had the strength for it, Logan doubted that he'd be able to stop her, but he'd deal with that when the time came. Just thinking hurt. Emma was right; it was time for bed.

Betsy frowned in concentration and the teens gently lifted off the floor. With her mind she led them down the hall, presumably to the infirmary. She paused only long enough to glance at the bloody floor and mumble that she'd get it later before disappearing around the corner. Emma stayed right where she was beside the door, a distasteful scowl marring her beautiful features. "Goddamn roaches," she muttered, hitting the door halfheartedly.

Logan gathered a still miffed Ororo into his arms, turning to leave. But Emma's voice stopped him. "Thank you, Logan," she told him quietly. "Truly. You've helped much more than I think you realize. The X-Men were already rotting from the core before you came along, and they'll need you now more than ever, now that Xavier, Jean, and" – here, she paused briefly and swallowed hard – "Scott are gone. They used to ground everyone, but now it'll have to be you. You have a talent for seeing a situation through everyone's eyes."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "You're saying that I have to be the sole anchor?"

The corner of her mouth twitched up. "You do it without even trying. You did it before you left, when I…" She blinked, absently placing a hand on her stomach. "When I got angry," she said finally. Logan thought about correcting her – she hadn't just been angry, she'd been a flaming bitch – but he decided against it. She knew what she'd done, and he could honestly say that she'd been entitled to get mad.

Instead of getting indignant with what she'd heard, Emma smirked. "You see that? You _think_. That's more than can be said of everyone else, including me, at times. You did it just now, too: when all hell almost broke loose, you brought us all back to earth by recognizing that Storm needed to be anchored the most." Her gaze fell down to Ororo for a moment before she looked back at Logan. "You've saved all of us in more ways than one."

He hadn't thought of it that way, and he wasn't even sure that he deserved that much faith placed in him. A little, yes, but to be the one person that kept everyone grounded when things started getting out of control? He'd thought, of everyone here, he was as close to chaotic as it got.

Emma shrugged. "Maybe that's why you're so good at recognizing that chaos in others and helping them navigate their way back to sanity."

Well, no matter how her faith was placed, this was high praise, especially coming from someone as proud as Emma Frost. "Thank you."

"Thank _you_," she repeated.

"And I wouldn't worry about doing this alone," Betsy put in, resuming her post on the other side of the door. "Emma and I may be somewhat lacking when it comes to understanding another's feelings, but I'd say we're quite grounded as well. Most of the time. And we've been thinking about coming back here for quite some time. It's rather boring in Massachusetts, and both schools would save a fortune if we merged…"

"But, more to the point," Emma interrupted, "it seems that we're needed here."

Logan nodded, unsure of what he ought to say to them. He was sure that Ororo would know just what to say, but she was out of it. Warren, blessedly, entered the foyer and saved Logan from having to say anything too awkward to the women.

"I see you're back," Betsy said shortly.

"I see you're right where I left you," he returned in an equally snarky tone. But before Betsy even snapped at him, Warren's wings quivered and drooped a little. "I'm sorry. That was rude."

Betsy said nothing, only stepped forward and seemed to be inspecting him. Why Warren would need inspecting, Logan didn't know. Perhaps he'd snuck out and gone to rescue his father despite Betsy's warning? It seemed plausible, as he'd been determined enough to stand up to her earlier.

Betsy reached out and prodded Warren's shoulder, causing him to wince. She recoiled instantly, as though she'd been burned. Concern flashed briefly in her eyes, but she smothered it well. "A lot of weight for those wings to carry," she muttered, her tone almost sympathetic.

Warren rolled his shoulders slowly and disguised another wince by smirking. "Good exercise?"

Unamused, Betsy's expression flattened and she shoved him back, deliberately avoiding touching his sensitive shoulders. "Go to sleep. You've…" Her violet butterfly mask flashed quickly and she turned her nose up at him. "You've _earned_ it."

The slight sneer or her face disappeared immediately when Warren grabbed her hand and kissed it before she had time to react. "Thank you," he said sincerely. "For understanding."

Betsy seemed paralyzed by his gaze, but the spell was broken by a quiet chuckle from Emma. "She's a _very_ understanding person," she said with an evil smile.

More words were exchanged between the threesome, but Logan didn't stick around to listen. He felt like he was dead on his feet, and Ororo was practically asleep against him. Calling on all of that power must've taxed her more than he'd realized. But before he could pick her up, she waved him off. "I have to tell Emma."

Her attention broke away from Betsy and Warren and she looked at Ororo curiously. "Tell me what?"

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Ororo frowned, rubbing at her forehead. "I… can't remember."

Emma was frowning too, likely sifting through her thoughts for what Ororo had forgotten. She shook her head after a long moment, apparently coming up blank as well. A thought crossed Logan's mind briefly, but he discarded it when Ororo told Emma that it would come to her. Why would Ororo have to tell Emma anything about Scott? What _could _she tell her that she didn't already know?

He picked Ororo up bridal style and climbed slowly up the stairs, pausing briefly to let an idea fully formulate before continuing on. Even without the enthusiastic agreement of Betsy and Emma, Logan was already convinced that it was the best course of action to take against the reporters: Who would know best about openly being a superhero? Or about dealing with paparazzi and unwanted attention?

Well, perhaps not _un_wanted, in Tony Stark's case, but he was still the best man for the job. Logan didn't have his number, but Ororo was sure to have it, and it was likely a call that he'd have to make before he went to bed. He didn't relish the thought of talking to the flamboyant genius when he was so tired, but it had to be done. Besides, he'd seen for himself that Tony could be serious when he wanted to be.

Satisfied that at least one problem could be taken care of, Logan made his way to Ororo's room and set her on her feet in front of the door. He wasn't sure just how upset she was about being compared to Phoenix, and didn't want to overstep any boundaries by inviting himself in.

She swayed unsteadily, and after a long moment of sleepily glaring at him, Ororo threw open the door and half dragged him inside. "… still mad at you," she mumbled against his lips as she gave him a kiss. "But you're right. How were you supposed to know?"

He pulled away long enough to look deep into her exhausted eyes. "I _should've_," he told her sincerely, kissing her again. "I'm sor – "

Her phone began ringing and she cursed quite colorfully as she dug through her pockets for it. "I really don't think so," she said flatly upon answering.

"You tell me you and everybody else is alright and Remy be good to leave you 'lone, padnat."

She sighed heavily, but the slight impatience didn't leave her tone. "I'm fine. We're all fine. We're also exhausted. Goodbye."

She went to hang up the phone, but Logan snatched it before she could. Waving a hand dismissively, she let Logan go and tested her stability. She had to go slow, but she began peeling off her suit as made her way to the bathroom by herself, presumably for a shower. "Gambit. Is Rogue with you?"

"Yessir," he chimed. "She a little… different, but she doing just fine now."

Logan frowned at the phone. "Would you mind defining _different?_"

"Let _me_ talk to him," Marie demanded in the background.

"Naw, naw, chere. You forgot so fast what happened when you was holding your own phone? Remy ain't 'bout to have you break his phone too, now."

"I won't break it!"

"I put you on speaker. That's compromise, oui?"

"Swamp rat."

"_River_ rat."

"You know," Logan said irritably, trying not to lose what little patience he had left, "She wasn't lying when she said that we're exhausted."

"Logan!" she nearly screeched. He hissed, holding the phone a few inches from his ear. "Please tell me everyone's okay! We saw just about everything on TV but it cut out near the end and by the time they got the feed back everyone was gone! Every_thing_ was gone! !"

"We're all fine, I promise."

"What about…" She trailed off uncertainly.

"She's gone," Logan said with a heavy sigh. "But she's better. She showed me. Now would you mind telling me just how the hell you're different?

"I…" Her voice wavered and she took a moment before she spoke again. "Well, for starters, I couldn't get the cure."

Logan rubbed at his temples. He wasn't sure if he had the energy to talk to her about this, but he'd have to find it somewhere. He'd fake it if he had to. She sounded upset. "Is that a good thing?" he asked carefully.

She sighed heavily. "No. Yes? I don't know. I have new powers now, but how I got them…" She hesitated. Whether it was because Remy was right there listening or perhaps because she didn't want to discuss it with Logan, it seemed that he wasn't going to find out tonight.

Perhaps that was for the best. He could handle waiting as long as she was alright. "When are you coming back," he asked lightly, freeing her from having to explain.

She sounded relieved when she answered. "When I learn to get these powers under control."

"That's where Remy comes in," he said. "I'm teach her to use these powers so she don't stir up no trouble when she get back. Can't say how long that's gonna take, but we be back when she ready."

Logan noticed the emphasis that Remy put on 'she' and felt decidedly better about that. He had to admit, he felt relieved that Remy was with her period. He didn't know much about the Cajun, but the fact that Ororo trusted him and was so close to him was enough for Logan. And Marie wasn't a damsel in distress. If Remy stepped out of line, Logan knew that he'd be put back in his proper place.

"Alright then," Logan sighed. "Don't take too long. If that's all…"

"Non," Remy spoke up. "You gonna tell me what happened with Storm." Before Logan could even open his mouth to say that she was just tired, Remy tsked under his breath. "And you make good and sure you tell me _all_ of what happened, Wolverine. You already forgot Remy's an empath? Maybe we on the phone, but that don't mean I ain't heard the stress in her voice. Even her breathing pattern is off. She ain't just tired."

Logan glanced at the bathroom door as Ororo came out. She wore a towel loosely wrapped around her body as she French braided her hair with quick, precise movements. She spared Logan only a passing glance as she made her way over to the bed, not even pausing when the towel slipped and pooled at her feet. He expected to feel a surge of lust, but he was too tired even for that.

Though, that didn't mean that he couldn't pause to appreciate the view. "She's okay," Logan said finally, not sure if it was his place to tell Remy _exactly_ what had happened to her.

"He wants to know what happened?" she asked, finishing her hair and staring expectantly at Logan. "Tell him."

He swallowed hard. She too wanted to hear _exactly_ what he had to say about all that had happened. "What's got you so nervous all the sudden?" Remy asked. "Don't you listen to her if she tellin' you not to tell me."

Logan shook his nerves off. If she wanted him to tell Remy, then he'd do just that. He wasn't going to lie, so she'd have no reason to be mad at him. However, he didn't have to tell him everything. It was Ororo's business if she wanted to give Remy every little detail. "You know that Ororo is an omega level mutant?"

"Oui. But what – " There was a long pause on the other end before Remy hissed, "Mon dieu! Like – "

"No, not like Phoenix," he mumbled, avoiding her gaze as he scratched at his chin thoughtfully. He wasn't sure how to explain the difference, but as soon as he opened his mouth the words came to him effortlessly. "Phoenix's powers were always 'on', so to speak. Ororo's are influenced by extreme emotions. There's also the fact that those powers have developed over time, while Phoenix's manifested at full capacity in such a short amount of time. That transition was too overwhelming for her, and she couldn't – or maybe wouldn't – shut those powers off. Ororo recognizes that her emotion drives her power so, in essence, she can open the floodgates to let all that power in, or close them to keep from being overwhelmed. She did that twice tonight, and it's tired her out."

Ororo gave him a strange look. _Twice?_ she mouthed. Logan thought about that and realized that he'd misspoken. Or had he? It didn't feel like he had, but before he could open his mouth to correct the mistake, Remy whistled. "That's a lot then. But how you know all that?"

That answer didn't require much thought either. "Phoenix." A piece of her, however small, was inside his mind. Perhaps it was way in the back, but it was enough to give him a vast amount of knowledge that he otherwise wouldn't've been privy to.

Remy accepted the answer without question, perhaps sensing that Logan was certain in his answer. "She gonna be okay then, oui?"

"Is Rogue," Logan countered.

Remy hummed thoughtfully. "Sure 'nough," he said, catching Logan's meaning. Remy was placing his trust in Logan to make sure that Ororo would be okay. Logan, in turn, was trusting Remy to help Marie get though this transition of acquiring new powers. The bottom line was that they knew they could trust each other, and that was good enough for now.

"Well, that's all. Ya'll get you some sleep now, hear? Au revoir!"

"Yeah," Logan said tiredly, hanging up the phone.

"You didn't say anything about Bobby," Ororo commented softly. Logan turned back to her and saw that she was wrapped under the covers, visibly fighting to stay awake. It was nothing short of a miracle that she wasn't asleep yet.

"I didn't have to," Logan replied, making his way to the shower as well. "He's fine."

"You thought I was going to kill him."

"But you didn't."

She looked down at the blanket covering her and traced the abstract pattern lightly. "I thought about it."

That halted him at the threshold of the bathroom, and he turned to her. He'd known that already – the look in her eyes had been obvious, no matter how she denied it – but he'd been so focused on calming her down that he hadn't had much time to think about it. And he sure as hell wasn't going to point it out to her after she'd made up her mind _not_ to hurt him.

"But you didn't," Logan repeated. "Why?"

Now it was her turn to give him an answer that would mean everything. It would mean the difference between knowing that she had her powers under control, or fearing that she'd become as unstable as Phoenix. If she'd refrained from killing him because she knew that it was wrong, then perfect. But if she'd done it simply because Logan had been afraid that she would, or because she just didn't want to be compared to Phoenix…

"I…" She sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of her nose, massaging gently. "I couldn't. He didn't mean for it to go so wrong, and he was so scared…"

Logan didn't need any more than that; she'd looked inside his mind and had seen that Bobby meant no harm. And for that reason, she'd _chosen_ to do him no harm. He leaned in and gave Ororo a swift kiss, lightly stroking her cheek. "_That's_ why I didn't mention it, darlin'. Now go to sleep."

He moved to go into the bathroom, but she stopped him, looking deep into his eyes, into his soul, it seemed. "I don't want you to be scared of me."

Logan rolled his eyes. "How many times do I have to say it, lady?" he asked patiently.

She frowned at him and rolled her eyes as well. "Yes, yes, I remember. Scared _for_ me." She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed in defeat. "I wish…" She opened and closed her mouth, grasping for anything to say. "I wish it didn't have to be this… complicated."

He kissed her again, slowly this time. It probably wasn't fair to distract her in such a way, but he had to get the point across. "That's part of the appeal," he mumbled against her mouth. "We'll learn to deal with the complications. We've already learned how to deal with some of them."

She pulled away slightly, though she looked like she didn't want to. "We shouldn't have to."

Logan could only shrug. "Would you rather our relationship was rigid? Set in stone and predictable? I don't think _anyone_ wants _that_. But as far as us, don't all the highs outweigh the lows?" She didn't look at him, nor would she answer. While that might've worried Logan in the past, he didn't even miss a beat. "I don't know about your mindset" – well, he did, but for the sake of the argument – "but you've completely ruined me for anyone else."

She didn't smile, but her eyes danced back at his in a way that made his heart swell. She pulled him down for another kiss, then pushed him back when he got a little too eager. "Much as I love you, you're not getting in my bed until you've had a shower," she said flatly.

Before he could reply, she closed her eyes and fell back on the mattress, probably fast asleep before Logan fully closed the door behind him. He took no offense, as they were both much too tired for _that_ in any case. He took his shower quickly to avoid getting too tired and, like Ororo, didn't bother with anything more than a towel when he came out.

He debated just going to bed, but knew that he probably sleep for days when his head hit the pillow. Grumbling, he grabbed Ororo's phone and sat at her vanity, mentally preparing himself as he dialed Tony's number and waited for the billionaire to answer. Part of him hoped that the man was too busy, but the other half knew…

"Ororo?" Tony hollered.

Again, Logan held the phone a few inches from his ear. He had a headache already. "Logan," he corrected flatly. He didn't bother lowering his voice, as nothing short of a hurricane was going to wake her now.

"Ah. Her other half then." He said it so carelessly – as though it were a simple fact of life – that Logan had to smirk a little. But Tony's speech was rushed and impatient. Logan heard a lot of footsteps and items crashing and muffled curses from both Tony and Pepper, which made that smirk immediately falter.

"You sound... busy," Logan commented.

"What's that? Oh, no. Just gathering some things. Glad you called, Logan. I'm on my way."

Logan blinked. "Oh. Okay." That was easy.

"_Not_ okay!" Pepper shouted, as though she'd said it fifty times already. "Tony, we just got back! You can't seriously – "

"Oh no, Potts! You _said_ you'd call them and see if they needed any help. Obviously they need it because _they _called _me!_ Dummy, so help me **GOD**, if you drop that fuel rod – "

"Sir," said a smooth, accented voice, "clearly no amount of threatening to donate him or turn him into a wine rack will – "

"Right now, Jarvis? _**Really? ! ?**_"

"Is he arguing with computers?" Logan interrupted. If Tony's mind was made up about coming to New York then he didn't need to hear this.

"An AI and a robot," Jarvis corrected.

"Oh, _that_ makes it okay, then," Logan grumbled.

"Logan," Pepper pleaded, her voice on the edge of hysteria, "this is insanity! With all the strength he has, how will that help if he's up against a mutant! Are all of _you_ okay? We couldn't even hack into the satellite to see what was happening because - "

"Yeah, the TV cut out and when it came back on everything was over. We're all fine," Logan assured them. "And I didn't call to – "

"But _Tony_ won't be fine," she damn near screeched. "He'll _kill_ himself like he almost did tonight! !"

"I was _going_ to tell you about the palladium poisoning! !" he hollered back. "But I fixed it! It's a non-issue!"

"God_damn_ it, Tony! How is not telling me that you're _dying_ a non-issue? ! ?"

"Because I'm _**NOT **_anymore! ! !"

"Enough," Logan barked into the receiver, then lowered his tone when they quieted down. "Both of you need to calm the hell down! Pepper, have a little faith; I wouldn't call Tony if the problem was with mutants. This entire mansion is being swarmed by reporters and paparazzi and I was hoping maybe he might tell us how to deal with that."

"I'm on my way," Tony repeated, though Logan suspected that he was really talking to Pepper. "I can update your security systems, link it to Jarvis… Hell, I can even develop an AI just for you guys…"

"Hold on a minute," Logan said quickly. Lord above, how much would that _cost? !_ "You don't have to do all that."

"No one said I had to. I _want_ to," Tony said firmly. "Ororo's my friend. All of you are. I'll help in any way I can. It'll take me a few hours on this end, though. You're not the only one who had a rough night."

Logan thought about arguing, but decided not to. Knowing Tony, he probably wouldn't ask for a dime in return for his help. He was wealthy and powerful and extremely flamboyant, but Tony seemed like a fiercely loyal man, someone that was willing to give his last if he really thought that it would help. And as far as paying him for helping, Logan was sure that Ororo would be better at arguing that point than Logan would be.

"That is exactly why you should be _resting_, Tony," Pepper snapped. "Or do you plan on leaving me to deal with fixing the mess that Hammer made of the Stark Expo on my own?"

"Of course not," Tony said. The sound that followed sounded suspiciously like a kiss, followed by an annoyed growl from Pepper. But, of course, Logan didn't comment. "You're coming with me. I'll need help there, and you'll need help here."

"Tony, you made me _CEO_! How can I abandon – "

"Pepper. You're not abandoning anything. We'll take care of as much as we can with the Expo and Hammer, and then we'll go help the X-Men, which should really only take a day or two. Now, did you notice the emphasis I put on 'we'? Tell me you don't really think I'd leave you to dry like that."

There was a long, weighty pause before Pepper sighed heavily. "We're on our way," she grumbled.

"Fantastic!" Tony began shouting rapid commands to his computer (AI, Jarvis, whatever) and Logan listened for all of five seconds before deciding to hang up.

It took more effort than he thought it would to stand up, walk to the bed, and get under the covers. But when Ororo curled into his waiting embrace, he decided it was worth the effort. He buried his nose in her hair and she tucked her head under his chin. He wrapped an arm around her and she slithered that much closer. She fit against him seamlessly, like an answer to a question. He counted about three of her heartbeats, inhaled her rainforest scent once, and then he was out cold.


	97. Close To Normal

A lot happened in the months that followed. As promised, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts had arrived to smooth things over with the downright vicious reporters, and had updated their computer system, linking it to Tony's AI in Malibu. Ororo had refused to let Tony develop a special AI just for the X-Men, but he had insisted that they at least needed _some_ form of super powered computer. The end result was a computer that, while mostly independent, was still linked up to Tony's computer Jarvis for updates and all the necessary things that a computer was needed for. It was all quite technical, but Logan didn't really care so long as the thing wasn't too complicated to operate.

When they left again only a few days later, Logan found himself genuinely wishing that the billionaire could stay a little bit longer. If Logan was, as Emma had said, the one that kept everyone's heads level, then Tony was absolutely the one that kept everyone's chins up. Annoying as he could be, the man had a way about him that put a smile on every single face. It was really something that everyone was in need of after all that had happened, and Tony seemed to lighten the mood of the entire house without even trying.

But neither Logan nor Ororo – who later admitted to also wishing that Tony could stay for that reason – asked him to stay any longer than necessary. Apparently a rival inventor named Justin Hammer had tried to replicate the Iron Man suit and everything had gone to hell from there. Logan knew that there was much more to the situation than that, but Pepper and even Tony were clearly tense about the subject, so no one brought it up. Likewise, neither of them had asked for an in depth account of what happened on 'The Battle of Alcatraz', as it was being called. Tony seemed to pick up on the slight change in Ororo, but when she assured him that she was fine, he let it go.

Ororo's omega powers had scared her into temporarily reverting back into what Logan referred to as her emotionless, 'masked' state, but he'd nipped that in the bud the moment he recognized that she was closing herself off. Without making it into a big production or tearing each other down as they might've done in the past (though the discussion did became heated once or twice), they'd talked it out. Logan had pointed out events in the past to show her that suppressing her emotions would only lead to trouble, and Ororo proved that point by dropping the temperature to zero in her indignation. All he wanted her to do was embrace her emotions instead of hide them. Even if she only let those emotions out around him, at least she would have some outlet. He didn't want her emotions to overwhelm her again, and he certainy didn't want her to feel like she was alone with no one to look out for her.

After a while she relented and agreed to, at the very least, not hide her emotions from him. He'd watched her closely for a few weeks, knowing that the death of three best friends was a heavy burden that could lead to her slipping into that familiar pattern again. But she pleasently surprised him.

"When I think of all of them," she'd said weeks later, looking down at the grave stones from the balcony, "it's like they're still with me. Their words are still as fresh as if they'd just been spoken. It feels like we've only parted for a while, and that we'll see one another soon. I know that they're not miserable, and I know that they wouldn't want me to be miserable. How can I be so sad when I know that all the good they've all done will never be forgotten?"

It took very little effort to agree with her, because in many respects Logan felt the same; they weren't gone, just somewhere else. And he knew at least that Jean and Phoenix were both at peace, so he had to imagine that Xavier and Scott were too.

Magneto hadn't been heard of since Alcatraz, but everyone agreed that he was still alive. He was a man that was likely to scatter his resources across the globe, so that regardless of any setbacks he encountered, he'd be able to sustain himself and start again. Logan couldn't begin to guess at what his next plan of attack might be, nor did he care at the moment. He was enjoying the peace while it lasted, and when Magneto reared his head, the X-Men would be ready to stand against him.

On this particular day, Logan was making himself scarce. Today, the two mutant schools were finally merging. Most of the children of the Massachusetts Academy had been home with their parents following the scare on Alcatraz and, in the meanwhile, major additions had been made to Xavier's school to accommodate the swell of incoming students. Since he wasn't the most sociable person in the world, Logan had decided to just watch and listen from a safe distance. The students would all meet him eventually.

For now, students and parents were being greeted at the door by their two headmistresses, Ororo and Emma, and being given tours of the school by Betsy, Kurt, and Warren. Kitty, Peter, and Bobby were in the basement showing the students the base of operations for the X-Men, while Lee and a few others were assigning the newcoming students to rooms.

Lee's memory had been wiped of the incident of John being taken, and after a few days Logan had calmly told her what happened, entirely leaving out the fact that Bobby had been there. She'd looked just as pained as she had when he'd been taken, but she hadn't made a sound as tears rolled down her cheeks and she asked to be alone.

Emma and Betsy had tried using Cerebro and Ororo had even gone out to search for him, but it was as if John had been erased from existence. It stressed Ororo out, but she didn't give up hope that John would be found. Logan admired Ororo's determination, but at the same time knew that the longer it took to find him, the harder it would be. Perhaps Ororo knew that too, but she never spoke of any doubts she had.

He caught sight of her from his spot up on the balcony and watched. Her smile was genuine, but she was clearly forcing herself to be cheerful. She'd be tired of this charade by the end of the day, but that was what she had Logan for. He'd be there for her when she was tired of acting like she didn't have a single problem.

Jimmy, now with a full head of hair, ran to her excitedly and threw his arms around her, and Logan caught a hint of real joy as she hugged him back. She'd been worried that he would want to be away from mutants after all that he'd been through, but Logan had told her that he'd be back to the school.

Jimmy knew; it hadn't been mutants that had put him in that lab. Rather, the mutants had been the ones to save him.

Jimmy went inside the school like he was coming home, and Ororo resumed her greetings. Two approaching figures caught Logan's attention and he felt a spark of excitement as well. It felt like Marie had been gone much longer than a few months, despite the phone calls. He'd tried not to pry into her business, but they'd still find themselves talking for at least five minutes every week or so. She still hadn't told him a thing about her new powers that she'd acquired, and looking at her walking side by side with Remy, she didn't look any different than she ever had.

They greeted Ororo and she and Remy exchanged hugs. Despite being fully covered, Marie shied away from giving Ororo a hug, but Logan doubted that it had anything to do with the weather witch. Logan was about to make his way down the stairs to greet him as well, but she caught sight of him and waved enthusiastically. Then _she_ came up to meet _him_.

She lifted off the ground and flew towards Logan, hovering a few feet from the balcony as she grinned at his likely flabbergasted expression. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it hadn't been _that_.

"Long time, no see, sugah."

Logan nodded. "I'll say," he muttered. "You make that look pretty easy."

She grinned wide. "Well, when you've got the right teacher…"

"Yeah, I bet," he said, not wanting to hear any more than that. Those matching smiles they'd been wearing was evidence enough of how close they'd grown during Marie's 'training'.

She chuckled. "Oh, don't be like that, Logan. Remy really was a fine teacher."

He felt like telling her that he neither needed nor wanted details, but a whistle from below cut him off. "You gonna make Remy take the stairs, chere?"

"Thinking about it," Marie muttered as she dropped a few feet and easily lifted the Cajun off the ground as well, setting him next to Logan on the balcony.

Logan's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Goddamn," he mumbled.

Remy and Marie both grinned at him. "She strong, non?" Remy inquired, then turned to her. "Now I know you was worried bout talkin to the ice stick, but you ain't gotta no more. Remy put it _all_ into perspective." He ended that statement with a Cheshire cat grin that made Marie groan.

"Oh, I just bet you did!" She shoved him with a flat palm, knocking him off his feet like a rag doll, and went into the house with a tense expression.

_He should be back in his room by now_, Logan thought, wondering if she could read minds too. It looked like the flow of students had been winding down, and only a few of the new students were being given tours of the basement. She popped her head back out and looked at Logan with an expectant expression.

"No mind reading?"

She shrugged. "Not that I'm aware of."

"He's probably in his room."

She dipped back inside and the look that Remy gave Logan as she disappeared was only mildly disapproving. "Now why you wanna go and encourage that?"

He shrugged. "She does what she wants," Logan replied. "You ought to know that, after spending almost five months with her. Now are you going to tell me just what the hell happened to get her those powers?"

The whites of Remy's eyes briefly darkened to grey. "It was a whole lotta protesters at them clinics, and they wasn't all just shoutin' and holdin' signs."

Logan nodded. He'd seen the news. It had gotten pretty violent in a few areas, even worse than the one that John had blown up. "The mutants tying to get the cure were getting harassed."

"By other mutants," Remy said with a nod. "Some woman that was tryin to help caught the wrong crowd and got beat up real bad. Rogue fought a few off, and I took care of the rest when I got there. We was gonna take her to a hospital, but she reached out and touched Rogue and wouldn't let go for nothing. I guess she held on too long 'cause she died less than a minute later."

Logan frowned. Marie hadn't said it in so many words, but Logan could tell through their numerous conversations that she blamed herself for whatever had happened to get her those powers. Now he knew that she blamed herself for the death of this woman. "Why the hell does she have it in her mind that she's at fault?"

Remy raised an eyebrow at him. "She cover every last inch of her skin to keep from accidentally hurting somebody. If that woman had touched anyone else, nothing woulda happened. Don't think too hard about it," Remy added, obviously noting Logan's slightly confused expression. "She keepin' most of the details of what she feelin' to herself. You wanna really know then you gonna have to ask her yourself."

Logan nodded, but he didn't intend to ask. Marie would bring up the subject and tell Logan what she wanted him to know when she was ready. Until then, Logan would just have to live in mystery. That was fine with him, so long as she was alright. And it was clear that she was. In fact, she seemed a little better than okay, possibly because of the company she'd had for the past few months…

Remy laughed, possibly reading his mind through his emotions. "Don't you worry none, Wolverine. Hard as it was, Remy behaved hisself."

Logan rolled his eyes. It felt better to think of her as a young girl rather than a grown woman. If that statement was a lie, he didn't want to know.

"If it makes you feel better to know," Marie said, reappearing with a disapproving look at Remy, "I know that, maddening as it is, my powers are a part of who I am. So is _she_ now…" Her voice fell a little and she frowned, but shook it off just as quickly. "Carol was… a good woman. And she was going to die with or without my help. I just sped up the process and ended her suffering faster. She wouldn't want me to be miserable about this, and I'm sure I've been made better by her memories and powers."

Remy smiled at her, not his normal cocky smirk, but rather a dazzling smile that made Marie's heart audibly flutter. Logan cocked an eyebrow and left them out on the balcony to ogle each other privately.

He decided to head towards Ororo's office to wait for her, as she'd mentioned earlier that she had something important to tell him. He couldn't imagine why she would need to wait until the afternoon to tell him whatever the hell it was, but he was extremely curious about it and he wasn't going to let her forget.

After a few minutes of waiting in silence, he turned on the TV and decided to flip though the channels. If he remembered right, Hank had told them something about being promoted…

He stopped on a news station just in time.

The president wore a proud smile as he addressed the audience in front of him and the audience on the other side of the screen. "And so it is with the thanks for a grateful nation that I introduce our new ambassador to the United Nations, and the representative to the world for all United States citizens, human _and mutant_ alike – Dr. Hank McCoy."

There was polite applause as Hank strolled into view and shook the president's hand, and Logan noted that the blue mutant had never looked as comfortable in his blue fur as he did now. He nodded his approval. "Way to go, furball," he said quietly, but changed the channel as soon as Hank opened his mouth to deliver an acceptance speech. The mutant may have grown on him, but politicians hadn't.

He flipped through a few channels before turning back, frowning thoughtfully as he watched Tony smile broadly and shake hands in what appeared to be a courtroom. Enthusiastic applause followed him as he exited, looking directly into the camera like a practiced celebrity. "My bond is with the people, and I will serve this great nation at the pleasure of myself," he said, with a smirk. "If there's one thing I've proven, it's that you can count on me to pleasure myself."

"You see that!" a self-important looking man named Senator Stern declared excitedly. "Tony Stark is not a hero, he's a jackass! He's an arrogant little prick!"

"Sir," the interviewer said politely, "I think what has most people on his side is the fact that one could argue that the Iron Man suit grants Mr. Stark no more power than the X-gene grants a mutant. One could even argue that there are mutants with mutations more powerful than his suit."

"I guess that's a valid point," Stern said.

"So are you saying that mutants should be ordered to hand over their powers just as Mr. Stark was ordered to hand over his suit?"

"Well…"

"I mean, we all saw what happened when that cure was made legal, and it wasn't even mandatory."

"Yes…"

"And not long after Mr. Stark was brought to court, multiple machines that were neither made by Stark nor under his control destroyed all of the Stark Expo and much of the surrounding area."

"That wasn't – "

"Furthermore, in both instances, the ones being ostracized were the ones that took up arms in order to defend those of us that needed it, as well as" - she threw a pointed look in his direction - "the ones that were complaining."

The man fell silent, his nostrils flaring in discontent. Logan smirked, shaking his head. "She's got you there," he muttered.

The interviewer blinked and looked down for a moment. "It sounds like Tony Stark is watching as we speak and is tweeting about it."

Logan blinked. "… the fuck is 'tweeting'," he wondered just as the screen changed to show what looked like a webpage.

" 'I love _all_ my haters, Stern! So dangerous weapon on these nuts!' "

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose as he laughed. Tony was indeed a clown, but he was a smart clown, and a hero as well.

They all were, and Logan was suddenly grateful that he and the X-Men weren't going through any media scrutiny on whether or not they deserved to help people. Why should something like that be conditional? If someone wanted to help, then they ought to be allowed to.

But things were getting better. That much was clear. Hank had been accepted by the United States government, Tony was accepted the world over as Iron Man, and even New York had welcomed a resident mutant hero that was rumored to have spider-like powers. People finally wanted to _help_ each other. It was refreshing to watch.

Logan made his way out to the office balcony. It was taking some time, and it certainly wasn't easy, but it seemed that things were taking a turn for the better. For now, things were actually pretty close to normal.

THE END

* * *

... Well, sorta.

What can I even say for myself? How long has it been? ? TOO LONG, for sure... I guess I can only apologize, and let you know that the next chapter is already done and just in need of a little tweaking here and there. And, of course, thank you to everyone for reading and putting up with my long periods of silence. An epilogue will be posted soon. Like, in two days or so. I PROMISE! I'll try not to be this terrible with my updates when I get to writing the sequel.


	98. Epilogue

Upon stepping out onto the balcony, her scent filled his lungs immediately. Logan looked down and spotted Ororo below him, pacing tensely and muttering under her breath. He frowned and quietly crept down the stairs, keeping himself out of sight so that she wouldn't know that she was being watched. At least, he hoped she didn't know. He could be impressively stealthy when he needed to be, but she had a way of knowing when she was being watched. In this instance, however, she seemed too focused to notice anything other than what she was saying to herself. The closer he got, the clearer her words became.

"When I was young and foolish," she said, as though reciting a speech, "and feeling totally cast out from the world, I used to wonder if there were others like me, and dream of the future we might create together."

She paused, seemingly lost in thought. Her eyes were unfocused, but after about a minute of that she shook her head a little and resumed her pacing. "Then I actually encountered some others, and aspects of that dream turned out to be not-so pleasant.

"As with every era in human history – perhaps even natural history – good seems ever balanced by evil. The higher and more glorious the summit of our aspirations, the fouler and more insatiable the abyss we leave behind. That's why Xavier's has always been, and I shall hope and pray always remains, a _school_."

Ah. She was reciting the speech that she was planning on giving to the new and returning students and parents as their new headmistress. Logan decided to continue to listen, impressed by the strength of her words. Perhaps being headmistress was exactly what she needed to begin repairing her damaged confidence in herself. And with Emma there to help, she wouldn't be overwhelmed into thinking that she was failing if things didn't turn out exactly as she hoped.

"While we X-Men exist to protect humanity from those who dwell in the abyss, this school is ever focused on the summit.

"Why humanity is fractured, why some have enhanced genes and others not, none of us can say. But that should not, _must_ not, matter, for fundamentally we all come from the same stock. We are all born of this world, composed of the same raw materials as the cosmos itself, a potentially magnificent family of sentient beings.

"We strive because we must, that is reality. But _why_ we strive must _never_ be forgotten." Logan saw her eyes briefly flicker across the three memorials in the courtyard. "The yearnings – the hopes – that bind us together as a species must be greater and more lasting than the petty conflicts that drive us apart. We are all of us brothers and sisters, parents and children. And ultimately, the character of each and every person, and the deeds that flow from it, must matter more than the color of their skin, or their origin of birth, or the structure of their genome.

"That is our dream. This school, and we X-Men, exist to help make it a reality."

Ororo took a deep breath and nodded to herself, seemingly satisfied. Logan emerged from the shadows and offered her an encouraging smile, which she returned with a timid one of her own when she realized that she hadn't been alone. "Not so bad," he commented as he stood in front of her.

"Emma wanted me to give the speech. She thinks that I'm more of a people person than she is."

He shrugged. "She's not lying."

She shook her head with a heavy sign. "All the trials I've faced in my life… and _this_ makes me uncomfortable and nervous," she confessed quietly. "I didn't ask the professor to make me headmistress. He just told me that one day he hoped that I'd take his place."

"I don't envy you," Logan admitted. "You get the big office, you get all the headaches that go with it." She frowned up at him, and he finished his statement before she could retaliate. "I really can't think of anyone better for the job."

She stared at him intensely, as though trying to see into his very soul. Logan let himself fall into her gaze, drowning in the depths in the hopes that she _could_ see into his soul.

He loved her, possibly from the very instant that he'd met her, though he hadn't known it then. But he wanted her to know that now, and all that it meant for him. Life had been a simple thing for Logan before Ororo Munroe. He did as he pleased, took what he wanted, didn't consider the consequences or repercussions… Nobody had ever cared much for him because he made it plain that he wouldn't care for them in return.

Marie had been the chink in that armor, and Ororo had torn it wide, so much that he couldn't go back to his old ways even if he wanted to. And knowing her, loving her – and knowing that she loved him in return – made him never want to love another the way that he loved her. He wanted her to see the creature he had been, wanted to stand upright and proud and be judged against the _man_ he had become because of her.

The corner of her mouth kicked up in a smile and she leaned in to kiss him. She wasn't very gentle, but she wasn't particularly fierce either. But it was just enough to make him breathless and want so much more. Her lips were soft, her skin was cold, her scent filled his lungs. Separately, those sensations made his heart beat furiously. Combined, he felt like he could fly.

"I love you," she whispered as she pulled away. "Probably ever since that day you saved me almost eighteen years ago."

He blinked. He didn't think about it often, but every now and then he remembered that dream/memory of saving her from Stryker when she was a little girl. He also remembered that she'd failed to bring it up. He'd never been very sure of how he ought to bring it up, but it seemed that now he didn't have to. "Could've fooled me," he told her, lightly resting his forehead against hers. "You treated me like a complete stranger when we first met. You sure as hell didn't _act_ like you loved me."

"I was eight, and traumatized. You pulled me out of that prison, put me with Scott, and disappeared forever. I thought I'd dreamt you into existence, and after spending fifteen years idolizing an imaginary savior..." She shrugged, giving him a peck on the lips and leaving the rest of her statement open.

"You still could've said something," he said, though he wasn't pressing. Perhaps they wouldn't be where they were now if she had said anything. What was done was done, so there was really no reason to press her for an answer as to why she'd never mentioned it.

"What could I have possibly said? I was still convinced that I'd _dreamt_ of you saving me. And besides that, I don't trust my heart to people so easily."

"Would've been safe with me," he said, leaning in to kiss her again.

"I didn't know that then," she mumbled against his lips. When she finally pulled away, she stared at him for a moment before looking away. "I don't trust very easily at all. Maybe that's something I'll need to work on, now that we're in the thick of _everything_ to do with mutants." She gave him a sad smile and her eyes fell on the graves of three people that had become her family over the years. "I think I liked our lives better when we were semi-outlaws."

Logan looked at the graves with her, snaking an arm around her waist to pull her closer. "Everything changes, Ororo," he told her, gently pushing a lock of her hair out of her eyes. "I agree, though. I don't like change much either." She stiffened beneath him and he immediately pulled away from her, frowning at her in confusion. She looked uncomfortable, but hell if he knew why. "What?"

"Change isn't… _always_ bad."

Her expression was overly cautious, and Logan was sure that his was too. She looked anxious, and that was making him edgy as well. "No," he said slowly. "Change can be good. Sometimes."

"Only sometimes?"

Logan shrugged slowly. What did she want him to say? "I guess it depends on what kind of change. Are we talking about mountains? Molehills? Are we even talking about _us_?"

She pinched the bridge of her nose and massaged gently, sighing. "This isn't how I imagined this conversation going."

Logan watched her carefully, still a little wary. "You can start over if you need to. I'm still completely lost."

She gave him a sour look and dug in her pocket. "You know what? Just take it!" She threw a small object at him and he caught it without looking. "And don't you ever say that I didn't try to make this at least a _little_ more memorable."

Her change in tone relaxed Logan a little. She wasn't angry and, more importantly, she wasn't nervous, as she had been moments before. She was just annoyed, and that was something that he could deal with. "Why would this conversation need to be memorable? What the hell are you _talking_ about?"

"_That!_" She pointed to what she'd thrown at him and he looked at the object he'd caught.

What the hell did a pregnancy test have to do with anything memorable…

Logan's mind screeched to a halt.

"Yeah," she said flatly.

He swallowed hard and chanced looking at the reading. It was faint, but his eyes were sharp and there was no mistaking what it read.

_Pregnant_.

Just like that, his senses seemed to pick up on the slight changes that were now blatantly obvious. His scent clung to her more than usual, and something about her felt more… alive.

Or rather, something _within_ her felt alive.

He ran his fingers through his hair. She was _pregnant_! "Fuck," he muttered.

Ororo rolled her eyes, shaking her head. "Yeah. That's how this happened."

He shook his head. She'd misinterpreted his meaning, but he couldn't move his mouth to tell her what he meant. First and foremost, he was relieved. For a moment, she'd had him worried that whatever she had to say was bad news for them. A million terrible scenarios had run through his mind at the speed of light, though he remembered none of them now that there was nothing to worry about.

But mostly, he was surprised. And _happy_. Children had never been an intense desire for him, but being around Marie, Lee, and Kitty had awakened a desire to have his own daughter. Or son. And the thought of having a child with Ororo, the only woman he could ever dream of sharing such an experience with…

Ororo was still waiting for him to speak, but he said nothing. He let the test slip through his fingers and fall to the ground as he attacked her fiercely, his entire being aching for every inch of her. He was, perhaps, a bit too eager. Her back collided with a slim tree in the small garden, damn near knocking it over. Her indignation lasted only seconds before she returned his kisses with equal passion, tugging at his hair and arching against him in a manner that suggested that she wanted him just as badly.

She pulled away briefly and stared at him with eyes as bright as sapphires. She looked torn. "My speech," she muttered, while her eyes screamed that they needed to go to their bedroom _now_.

Logan leaned down and offered his own opinion, nipping lightly at her throat. He knew that her job was important to her, but _damn_, he couldn't wait that long! He wanted to persuade her to forget about her responsibilities, just this once. What was the point of having two headmistresses if they didn't take each other's places ever now and then?

The sound she tried to contain told him that his persuasion was working. He took it one step further, finding that one spot between her shoulder and her neck that was most sensitive and giving her a love bite. She had to cover her mouth to stifle her moaning, and gave him a look that was pure heat.

"Emma can handle it," he mumbled before he did it again, harder. Her hand only just muffled a scream of ecstasy.

"_You two disgust me_," Emma declared, though she was nowhere in sight. Not that Logan was really looking. At the moment he didn't care who saw them. "_Get the hell out of sight if you're going to do that!"_

"_And cover your thoughts!_" Betsy added. "_There are young telepaths here! Do you have **any** idea how loud and raunchy your thoughts are_?"

_Does that mean she's off the hook_? Logan asked, already tugging her in the direction of the balcony stairs.

"_Whatever_," Emma said impatiently. "_You have an hour. And you'd better not get impatient and do it in the office! It isn't soundproofed to keep out Logan's shrill howls!"_

Shameless – as always – Logan grinned and fused his lips to Ororo's. _Better make it two hours_, he thought before he blocked everything out of his mind. Everything except his lover, his best friend, and the mother of his child.

The (Real) End

… until the next story!

* * *

I HAD to leave it all off with a sweet moment. SO... I believe thanks are in order...

If you read this story...

If you left a review...

If you sent me a message...

If you helped with improvements...

If you offered suggestions...

If you asked questions...

If you're reading this now (yes, YOU!)...

Thank you. Anyone who had anything to do with this story is partially responsible for me getting this far! Because YOU wanted to read more, so I had to give you more! Thank you to everyone, and see you in the next story. I'm going to take a well deserved break and work on the next story at a more leisurely pace. And, in the meantime, I think I'll make myself a hero cookie!

Toodles! !


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